What if a cleaning man is more affordable?

The increase in plane spraying in the sky also has increased so much the last 3 months I think that fucks up our breathing

Very different cities! Each have their pros and cons. Low cost of living in NC but you get what you pay for.

Yeah, I've been wondering about mold related allergies with all the rain we've been getting lately.

What city do you like better overall Columbia or wherever you were in nc? Raleigh?

Here in moco for some reason the eye and sinus throat allergies are high right now

Ic, yeah I’m assuming it’s slightly better than inland md because more ventilation

Worse than North Carolina, which surprised me. But later and shorter tree pollen season. Just as intense, if not more. Weed pollen is pretty bad. Grass pollen is intense but short.

Depending on what you're sensitive to, generally springtime is rough - the pollen gets very bad and I need to make sure that I start taking allergy meds in late February.

Summer through winter is fine for most.

If you are coming from a place with less plants (say the Southwest/desert) then it will be bad in comparison.

It gets bad for a couple weeks in the spring and fall when trees blossom and leaves fall. Other than that it's pretty good.

Probably not terribly helpful, but “affordable” may not be your first criteria. Recently went through the cleaning company gauntlet after ending my relationship with the same company for 10 years. Tried 3 more services until I found someone that was the right balance of great at cleaning and value.

My experience is that Big Box cleaners will cost you the most. “One lady and a mop” will cost you the least. And quality is hard to predict as a function of price.

Anyway, I ended up with Huggins Cleaning. Kim is great.

Elkridge Furnace Inn is a nice restaurant, the food was top notch for my wedding a few years ago. A bit overpriced but part of the deal is the historic building (its also nice and scenic outside during the spring/summer.) I think they have built residential houses around it but still a nice little place to eat.

there's a pretty good chinese restaurant called "pepper house" off of rt 40 in ellicott city, they have some nice sichuan style cuisine there

every place i mentioned is somewhere i went to, and liked. The way I find them is usually just getting in the mood for something and looking up "[blank] food columbia", or sometimes I just drive past a place and go "that looks interesting, i should go try it sometime". If you want a staggering amount of really delicious and varied asian restaurants I highly recommend literally just driving down rt 40, theres a toooon of places tucked into random strip malls or shopping centers.

Also the main reason these places dont do marketing is because they dont make that much money and the owners often dont speak english very well, but if you look for them they all have some type of website at least.

They are so good. I will have to look to see if they are doing a deal for this week.

I really wish those types of restaurants did more marketing / we're more approachable. I know it's giga hard to break into new demographics, but I want to try these places but it's difficult sometimes.

The real wish is i wish I had more knowledge about these tiny places and what was good to order there and the best way to do it.

I will try all these places you mentioned though on the yolo principle.

Chinese restaurants in Howard county are very lame. I agree with the Korean ones and the food courts.

Community supported agriculture - you sign up to get produce directly from a farm every week for the whole growing season

Lol, classic Reddit thread…bouncing from one extreme to the next.

Went to the food market and it was solid. Food took an age to get out but was tasty.

The Food Market is fantastic!!! You can't go wrong with Victoria, Manor Hill, and White Oak either.

What’s a CSA?

I wasn’t replying to the OP’s post in that response. I was replying to another person’s characterization of “the way Columbia is now,” (or something to that effect.)

The “safest city in the country” thing is pretty much a meaningless story. That said, crime records are public information, and much-scrutinized.

By nearly nearly every metric, Columbia is in 2023 a remarkably safe place for a city of 100k.

Sorry if I was confusing. And sorry for your friend’s experience in 2009.

The best food for both price and quality that you can find in howard county is generally gonna be the tiny ass immigrant run places. Go to Manila mart, Tigi's ethiopian, any of the korean/chinese restaurants on rt 40 (or just go to the food court in lotte if you're lazy), check out the salvadoran and mexican places all up and down rt 1 (i highly recommend los primos taqueria), try grille chick'n pollo in the hickory ridge village center, or nari sushi in the kings contrivance village center.

I think these lists tend to skew way too hard towards euro-american fine dining type restaurants