These photos got me to thinking about homeowner’s insurance and coverage for nature’s angry outbursts. Thanks to Pamela Stevens of TopTen Reviews, I have the skinny for you.

Ugly outcome when the earth roars

Photo by USGS

In 1971, a magnitude 6.7 quake threw me out of bed, across the room, and dropped a bookcase on me. We were luckier than many in the San Fernando Valley. Stevens writes that if you have private homeowner’s insurance, you can add earthquake endorsements. If you live in California, the California Earthquake Authority offers coverage.

Twister assister

Photo by Richmond Times-Dispatch

Even if you live where this is a common sight, you can buy tornado coverage as part of your homeowner’s policy. Make sure you get repair coverage for hail, which typically shows up at the same time to hammer dings into even the best vinyl siding.

Surf’s up

Photo by Freak Waves

Don’t assume your homeowner’s insurance will cover damage from flooding. Stevens says you must secure a policy purchased through the National Flood Insurance Program.

Crispy creamed

Photo by Premier Choice Restoration

You can get fire damage endorsements throughout the country – unless you live in a high-risk area or a long way from the nearest fire station. Stevens says insurance companies can refuse you coverage. To find out if you live in a high-risk zone, check with The National Interagency Fire Center.

DOH!

Photo by Indy Media

Sad to say, most insurers will not offer coverage for radiation damage if you live near a nuclear power plant. Perhaps you should consider using lead when evaluating replacement windows.

Now the CPSC wants you to look at the model numbers of several winter heating appliances to make sure you’re not (out of ignorance or stubbornness) using a recalled product. Consider yourself duly warned.

Life is short

Photo by CPSC

Speaking of short, that’s what has happened to some of the 13,000 Touch Point Oscillating Ceramic Heaters imported by Meijer Inc. After two home fires were reported and 6,700 recalls, retailers apparently kept selling them. Now that’s tenacity. Consumer tip: if your room fills with smoke, open up or break out a window. I know there’s a related window replacement cost, but I guarantee it will  be less expensive than rebuilding your house.

HVAC villainy

Photo by CPSC

Do you need help in understanding the finer points of home ventilation? Put simply, when your Zoneline Air Conditioner and Heater caches flame and belches fumes, open a door or window and unplug the appliance. GE and Sharp have recalled 90,600 units after manufacturers discovered an electrical component in the units may fail.

Lasko buy a new one

Photo by CPSC

The CPSC reminds consumers to stop using The Lasko Model 5540 and Air King Model 8540 portable heaters. More than 107,000 have been recalled in response to fire hazards. Consumers reported that electrical connections in the bases melt. Contact the manufacturer for a refund.

Since we apparently need  reminders from the CPSC, here are a few facts about continuing to use recalled products:

• You do so under our own peril
• You’re refusing refunds or replacements for recalled items
• While there may be good excuses for burning down your home, fire inspectors may frown upon consumer negligence.

You’re lucky if you live in a residential conclave where there are homeowners’ association decorating caveats. Not everyone does, however. If you find yourself stuck next to a neighbor who believes that painting their home like a bilious gallbladder is a tasteful thing, you may be really stuck. In this market moving is not so easy.

Hello Kitty, goodbye sanity

Photo by House Logic

In 1960, Shintaro Tsuji created the now-legendary Hello, Kitty line of plastic purses. Today, there are 22,000 products lines in this motif. Let us hope that this is the only such home. I’m not recommending arson, but I’d certainly understand the impulse,

Purple rain, ugly residential pain

Photo by Country Joy Crafts

Several manufacturers make plum colored vinyl siding colors, but you’ve got to get out the buckets and  brushes to create something like this. It reminds me of the artificial color used in grape Popsicles. As I recall, the hue stayed on your tongue for the entire summer.

The sum-of-all-fears motif

Photo by Handiman Club

This theme combines all the elements of a metal roof patina, distressed shutter effects and contrasting flesh-tone paint. Unfortunately, they should never have been combined. Witness the tragic characteristics of a do-it-yourself exterior painting effort done while under the influence.

A bad idea executed to perfection

Photo by Recentering El Pueblo

I love the cottage and pueblo look you find in Arizona and California. I do not like the look that says, “Help, we’re trapped inside by creatures that eat brain cells.”  An appropriate façade for Solano Prison is not necessary an apt exterior for residential Santa Ana. If you can find a door bell, for heaven’s sake don’t ring it!

The ugliest fence

Photo by Rick's Fencing

There are lots of contenders but few winners. Oregon’s Rick’s Fencing chose this Corvallis fence as the worst of the year in its annual contest. If good fences make good neighbors, avoid living next door to this place. The homeowner (mercifully unnamed here) won “100 feet of free fencing materials” from Rick’s.

Arresting door of the year

Photo by New Jersey.com

Ohio police officer Michael Cleary submitted this photo to New Jersey.com’s annual ugly door contest. One voter remarked: “I expect that door to open and Liberace to be standing there.” Since Liberace passed in 1987, I reckon he would easily look better than the door. If this photo isn’t enough to induce vomiting, watch five minutes of any movie with Ashton Kutcher.

Tackiest lamp of the year

Photo by Find Great Stuff

A Tennessee woman created this lamp for a single Gatlinburg man in the hopes of keeping him warm on winter nights. I’d prefer setting a bonfire on the sofa and singing “Tenting Tonight”  to my ferret.

Fixer-urper

Photo by Milwaukee Rennaisance

The wood may still be salvageable underneath the siding in this most-foul of outdoor treatments. I’d recommend running a jackhammer across the surface and then dynamiting the rest of the place.

Worst carpet of the decade

Photo by Las Vegas Carpets

Earlier this year, I ran a retrospective of ugly carpets from Vegas. This is what you call a “throw rug”; you roll it up and throw it in the dumpster.

Here’s to a New Year luxuriant in décor and dazzling with fine taste. But I doubt it!

Doors of perception

Photo by Consumer Product Safety Commission

Liebherr, Austrian makers of high-end refrigerators are recalling three models with doors that can come off in your hand.  (Oh, that’s an ugly scar!) Is this the quality you expect  in a fridge that sells for $3,800? It’s the perfect Yuletide gift for people who like to stand in front of the open door, surveying leftovers.

Stewed to the grills

Photo by Consumer Product Safety Commission

Unsure how to personalize your kitchen renovation?  Try burning ugly scorch marks on your cabinets. It’s easy if you own one of the 27,000 Wolfgang Puck Electric Reversible Tri-Grill/Griddles imported from China by W.P. Appliances Inc. The recalled units in question tend to overheat and, if that’s not enough, they pose an electrical shock hazard.

Get toasted for the holidays

Photo by Consumer Product Safety Commission

Hamilton Beach is recalling 14,000 of its classic chrome, 2-slice toasters after consumers reported that the heating element fires up when the toaster is plugged into the wall. No need to push down the lever! Get yourself a replacement before your toaster initiates its own cabinet refacing project.

Now look what you’ve done

Photo by Consumer Product Safety Commission

Sure, we love great designs. But if you’re bent on reflecting on your self-image in one of the PAX AURLAND wardrobe mirror doors,  buy supplemental health insurance. The CPSC has encouraged IKEA to recall the product since “the mirror glass can detach unexpectedly from the wardrobe door, fall and shatter, posing a laceration hazard to consumers.” Who’s the fairest of them all?

Feliz caveat emptor!

Is this ugly, or is it me?

Photo by Ugly House Photos

My favorite blog of the disagreeable and dreadful, Ugly House Photos, hosts this monstrosity. Are these truly window accessories, re-purposed shower curtains, or torture aids used by the intelligence service?

Bed, bath, and the great beyond

Photo by Ugly House Photos

I hope I never get to see these window treatments in the flesh. Window replacement costs being what they are, why would you cover your light on the world with coffin liners?

This decorating goes to eleven

Photo by Work Room Intelligence

Certainly rich and ebullient, this monumental valence is a tad busy. I think my sweetheart of the rodeo wore this to Woodstock.

Valence with a vengeance

Photo by You Paid More Than Me

If you’re into the dingle-ball era of home exteriors, this valence may be the right choice to grace your period sitting room. Taken as a whole, I can’t take it at all: there are no curtains or drapes to complete the look. On one hand, it appears that the vampire bat has made it through the window. With its brevity, it lends the overall affect that you’ve been pantsed.

Liberty Valance

Photo by Weird Wild Realm

If your window treatments are terrorizing your home, you need to take them out and shoot them.

In December, Romans celebrated the solstice for Saturn, the god of agriculture, by decorating their homes with evergreens. Pick your own reasons to celebrate. But no matter your beliefs, please, please do not decorate your home with objects that look like these:

Getting the decorating brush-off

Photo by Apartment Therapy

I really don’t need to know the spiritual connotations behind this holiday tree. I suppose you can fit empty beer bottles over the brushes and clean them for constructing a larger tree.

How refreshing, how green

Photo by Ugly Christmas Trees

See, just stack your freshly washed beer bottles into this glass obelisk to celebrate Bacchus, the god of headaches and projectile vomiting. Check out the more of offensive year-end shrubbery entered into a bad-taste contest at Ugly Christmas Trees.

Ugly or unique: You decide

Photo by Xigre

Let’s put it this way: either this tree was constructed by designers who emptied the green beer bottles into their gullets or by quirky aficionados of the tuba school of home decor. If you like this, Xigre has more to show you.

My tree

Photo by Philadelphia Weekly

You don’t complete seven years in college studying literature without learning how to arrange your bookcase to honor the equinox. The volume at the top, The Collected Novels of Henry Miller, is probably inappropriate.

If you’re going to grandmother’s house, then pac, man

Photo by Xigre

The cultural savvy of how to choose your decoration is passed down through generations. If you were skipped over, Reader’s Digest can tell you how to pick the perfect tree.

One last thing:  No matter your choice, please use safe and non-toxic Christmas tree preservatives this year. If you don’t, yule be sorry!

This week, Forbes Magazine listed the nation’s cities with the filthiest air quality and, no surprise, seven of the ten worst are  in California. Here’s what lung cancer looks like:

Exray by Prep for MD

Forbes writer Christopher Helman crunched data from The American Lung Association’s State of the Air 2011 report to find that Bakersfield has 60 days a year of air ten times worse than the lowest acceptable levels of polluted, breathable air.

Bakersfield, America’s Mordor

Photo by Forbes

Just north of Los Angeles in California’s San Joaquin Valley, Bakersfield is home to 800,000 residents who inhale the worst year-round particulate pollution level in the nation and second-worst ozone pollution levels. Simply disgusting.

Consistently grotesque

Photo by Furman University

Just over the hills from Bakersfield lies the greater Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside metropolitan area, ranked second-worst in the nation for year-round particulate pollution and tops in ozone pollution. Why 17.8 million people continue to live there is a mystery to me. Many Angelinos flocked south to the beach-side communities in San Diego for relief, but now that metro area ranks 9^th on the Forbes list.

Pass the oxygen mask

Photo by Eco Trees

Visalia-Porterville, Calif. ranks third on the top-20 list, treating its 430,000 residents to the third-worst ozone pollution levels in the country. The City of Visalia touts the place as the “Crown Jewel of the San Joaquin Valley” and a place that “draws visitors from metropolitan areas with its picturesque communities and stunning landscapes against the backdrop of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.” Good luck seeing them.

An ugly, far-from-green environment

Photo by SF Gate

Fresno’s 1.1 million residents choke down the fourth-worst air in the nation, according to Forbes, where the skies combine traffic pollution with agricultural waste products that are leeching into the atmosphere from America’s Breadbasket. The San Francisco Chronicle reminds us that when Congress passed Clean Air Act Amendments 20 years ago, it promised to deliver across the nation Federal mandated levels for ozone pollution by November 2010. How’s that going, by the way?

Simply Capitol!

Photo by Sacramento Environmental Solutions

Sacramento rounds out California cities in the top-ten. It’s a state-house community where 2.4 million people wheeze away as their elected officials gaze out their windows at the nation’s 5th-worst levels of ozone pollution. Don’t forget sunscreen and a hat when you go calling!

Furniture that eats people

Photo by CPSC

The CPSC and Big Lots, of Columbus, Ohio, have agreed that 375,000 microfiber and leather glider recliners with ottomans posed sufficient “finger pinching and crushing hazards to older children and adults” to warrant a recall. Manufactured in China, the recliners were sold at Big Lots from January 2005 through December 2009 for $170. For recall information, contact Big Lots.

Fire commotion over Electric Motion

Photo by CPSC

Let’s say you bought one of Electric Motion Systems’ rechargeable lithium-poly battery packs. They’re used to power modified bicycles. Sad enough, they have a propensity to catch fire — not exactly what you’d like to happen while you’re riding to work in the morning. Hence, they’re being voluntarily withdrawn. Contact E+ Electric Bike for recall information if you own what the manufacturer calls “The World’s Most Advanced Electronic Bike.”

Your face, grilled to perfection

Photo by CPSC

Hope you haven’t purchased one of the GE Monogram® Pro Rangetop with Grill models recalled this month. Seems there’s a problem with the igniters, which sometimes fail to ignite the liquefied petroleum gas or, worse, delay ignition so that when the stove lights, you’ll certainly know it by the tell-tale explosion. Oops. The units were sold through August of this year. Check with the CPSC Recall Page to see the model numbers in question.

Life, my friends, is never boring.

Celebration of insatiability and ugly designs

Photo by Marchi Mobile

The design of the Elemment Palazzo appears to reflect the mutant offspring of a Ferrari and a Winnebago. According to Tecca, this greenhouse-gas-spewing nightmare comes complete with fireplace, a bank of large-screen monitors, rainfall shower and a pop-up bar with under-floor heating and party lighting that, when activated, increases the rolling 430-square foot interior space by 80 percent. (Pinch me and tell me this is just another Disney attraction.)

Environment, what environment?

Photo by Tecca

You’ll sleep with a clear conscience knowing that the Elemment Palazzo, while weighing in at 20 tons, uses one-fifth less fuel than vehicles of its size, according to its manufacturer. That savings, they say, come from its sleek aerodynamic designs. (Is there another vehicle of its weight and size that people use for recreational travel or vacation housing, or are the rest just moving vans and mobile missile launchers?)

Life in the fast lane

Photo by Marchi Mobile

From the captain’s chair the sordid rest of the world is at your command, rushing by on the Autobahn as you throttle up to speeds over 90 miles an hour. (I do like the rotary windshield wiper.)  If this vehicle had only come out sooner, California’s Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger could have used it for his governor’s mansion. Read more about the Elemment Palazzo at the Daily Mail. By the way, the price in England is only £1.9 million.

No explanation necessary

Photo by Marchi Mobile

As the builders at Marchi Mobile explain, “Marchi Mobile as an automotive brand represents exclusivity and extravagance that requires no explanation.”

Enough said.