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• Too much bed bug hysteria? (Bedbugger.com)
• Spy games landlords play (NYT)
• Raw dealing for buyers without brokers (Malcolm Carter)
• Board members: Boost your lawsuit avoidance IQ (New York Law Journal)
• Got noise? So did this UWS co-op (Habitat Mag)
• Why the first offer is always right (StreetEasy forum)

The cost of raising kids in the vertical village often necessitates two incomes and the outsourcing of care for said kids. But when you share the love and care of a child, open conversation can be challenging...

• 'Can I make you some coffee, dahlin'?' Translation: You are so grumpy you are scaring the kids!
• 'The child never cries when I put her/him down for a nap' Translation: Despite your sleep-training, I still rock your four-year-old to sleep.
• 'Oh, you wouldn't believe how long I waited for that train' Translation: I slept in.

I am from France and still own an apartment there where I am on the board. I lived in New York for eight years as a renter before looking for an apartment to buy early this year.

It took four months to find a one-bedroom I liked enough, a prewar co-op below W. 30th Street near Lexington Avenue.

I didn't know that co-op boards are said to be biased against foreigners.

In a flurry of bill-signing this week, Governor Paterson enacted several disclosure laws related to real estate: Landlords now have to tell potential renters about bed bug infestations, real estate agents have to confess divided loyalties to their clients in writing—and now co-op and condo sponsors have to alert residents about their right to cancel “sweetheart contracts” within two years after the sponsor loses control of the board.

“[O]ften the time to void the contracts expires before members of a condo or co-op board know they have this right,” says a press release issued by one of the bill’s sponsors, New York State Assemblymember Brian Kavanagh.

On the day of your open house, your agent needs to do more than babysit the sign in sheet and hand out business cards.

For the final installment of our 3-part open house guide for sellers, we put together this round-up of best-practices advice so you know what your agent ought be doing on the big day.

Dear Ms. Demeanor:

It's not expensive stuff, so I'm guessing that my housekeeper (who came to me last year from my former housekeeper) can't even afford her own utensils.

As of yesterday, NYC landlords must disclose bed bug problems to potential renters, which will make it a lot easier to find a bed-bug-free rental in the Big Apple.

The new law does not apply to co-op and condo buyers.

Nor does it require landlords to reveal the extent of bed bug problems beyond the apartment at hand (two entire lines of apartments is a very different scenario than two units 12 stories up) or the proximity of the bloodsucking insects to your dream apartment.

In other words, while a large bed bug problem in a small building is a dealbreaker, the same is not necessarily true of the opposite....but how is a renter to know?

Q. Is it possible to put recessed lighting into a prewar beamed ceiling, or does the ceiling need to be lowered first?

A. You will likely need to drop at least part of the ceiling, according to our BrickTank experts.

Your “prewar beamed ceiling” is probably reinforced concrete slab construction, notes architect Ethan Gerard, and “typically, co-ops and condos do not allow shareholders/owners to chop, cut, and channel structural elements such as reinforced concrete slabs, beams or posts.”

In the second of our three-part series on best open-house practices, we look at setting the scene and keeping out the riff raff (you, mostly).

The cleaner, the better

By the time of your first open house, we hope that you have already taken steps to declutter and stage your apartment.

Now for the routine maintenance.