If future residents of the new 8-story apartment building that’s being planned to go up in place of the El Tiempo 1308 Cantina and quite a few of its neighboring buildings don’t want to wait around for management to fix their leaky faucets, they won’t have far to go to find spare washers or other plumbing parts. Neighboring fix-it-yourself plumbing supply store U-Plumb-It will likely still be around to sell them parts and hand out advice — because it won’t be included in the redevelopment. But everything north of it, on the block bounded by Marconi St., West Clay St., and Montrose Blvd. will. Developer Sunrise Luxury Living is planning to build 5 stories of apartments — 220 units in all — over 3 levels of parking, a source tells Swamplot. Plans currently include some sort of retail component on the bottom floor, facing Montrose Blvd.
Prompted by a press release, the HBJ and the Chronicle announced yesterday that construction has begun on the 
Just where does that Houston new-home smell come from? The cookies the sales agent baked in the oven just before you arrived? The formaldehyde holding together the OSB and MDF? The VOC-laden paints and finishes still off-gassing indoors? An errant breeze from the Ship Channel? Well, sure, but also, it turns out, from liquid aroma cartridges squirted out by the motion-detector-equipped ScentWave (pictured above right), which shoots out a “clean and crisp . . . sweet floral” aroma to woo potential buyers and passersby who’ve stopped to sniff out a model home display. 
A reader writes: “Until this morning I had never noticed 
Home listing sleuths who’d been relying on historical asking-price data from NuHabitat (when most other consumer-facing MLS sources keep that info hidden) will be relieved to hear that the feature has been restored. Company founder Jeff Burke tells Swamplot the disappearance of the data from NuHabitat’s Price Tracker, which users began noticing last week, was inadvertent; an update pushed out earlier today brings it back. For logged-in users (only), 
“Houston and New Orleans stand alone as the creepiest cities on the Gulf Coast,” declare Mike Vance and John Nova Lomax. “With its pervasive voodoo ambience, sprawling cities of the dead, air of genteel decay and long history of murder and mayhem, New Orleans is undeniably a spooky town. Fright is a cottage industry there. Having said that, Houston is not far behind. Houstonians just don’t celebrate death and the past the way New Orleanians do.” 
