August 3, 2010 by Carolyn Boyd,

As featured in Talking Property,Domain

The Age Newspaper

It can be desperate times if you are looking to rent something. Especially when vacancy rates are dipping under 2 per cent in some areas, such as Melbourne’s inner city and its outer reaches.

Even if you’re not too fussy, tight rental vacancy rates in many cities means the situation can be dire. So it’s not surprising that when we asked our readers what they had done to secure a rental property, more than one-quarter said they had offered more than the asking price, taking a punt that a landlord couldn’t resist some extra income.

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Whilst we all know decreasing our car usage is an effective if not always easy step in reducing our carbon footprint. As Australian suburbs gradually become more dense, renters in inner city suburbs may also increasingly find that they have a decreasing amount of space to park and store cars.

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The Festival raises awareness and provides tools for change by showcasing tangible solutions to the ecological and social challenges we face.

In 2009 the Festival at Federation Square attracted over 124,000 visits and engaged more than 450 community volunteers.

In its eleventh year, the Festival is getting even bigger!

The 2010 Festival will include 2 programs, the Main Event at Federation Square (19-21 February 2010) and the Local Events Program (6-21 February 2010). The new 2-week format will enable individuals and communities across Australia to host and promote their own sustainability event, extending the reach of the sustainability message even further.

The Main Event at Federation Square in the heart of Melbourne will continue to celebrate the very best examples of ecological and social sustainability. The event will fuse interactive workshops, talks, demonstrations, artworks, exhibits, films and live performances. In recognition of the climate situation, the Main Event will be inspired by the theme: Get Ready for the Safe Climate Decade!

Our pics (most relevant/interesting to Renters)

Top 10 Reasons to Grow Your Own

How Car Dependence is Turning the Suburban Dream into a Nightmare

Sustaining Fashion? An Open Forum Exploring The Darker Side Of Fashion

GM Free is the way to be

Living Zero Waste

Life Time Affordable Sustainable Housing

Consumer Power-Making the Change

Sharehood Communities

And of course… How to Live Sustainably in a Rental Property yep, we are presenting a talk. It’ll be lots of fun with pictures, samples and demonstrations of things you can make yourself, so please come along . You can also chat to us as part of the Sustainable Living Library

Looking for a local business?
25 Jan 10 @ 07:34am by Julia Irwin

Featured in Darebin Leader

Russell Jarvis (front right) hits the road, moving house by bike.

MOVING house by bicycle might take a little longer than using a man with a van but it’s a lot more fun, says Preston resident Jos Tait. Ms Tait is a member of the Transition Darebin group, formed late last year as part of the global Transition Towns movement, which prepares the community for peak oil and climate change through practical, low energy alternatives. The group is offering a Darebin Bike Move service for those game enough to try. “We’ve already shown it can be done, we (about a dozen cyclists) moved Russell Jarvis from East Brunswick to Heidelberg.” She said the 15km trip took a few hours via the scenic route through Darebin along the Merri Creek. Riding a recumbent bicycle with a trailer, Mr Jarvis led the two wheeled movers to his new address.

“For anyone interested in shifting house by bike, we need to know when they’re moving and what they’re moving and then we’ll drum up some movers and get some bike trailers,” Ms Tait said.

Human Powered Cycles and Loophole in Thornbury loaned the group bike trailers for Mr Jarvis’ move. For more information about Bike Move or Transition Darebin email


transitiondarebin@gmail.com

IF you can’t quite get your head around how this would be possible, here’s a You Tube video of a move from Footscray to East Brunswick

We all know bikes are great, but for a lot of us we have very little space to actually store the two-wheeled-wonders, there are a growing number of small and foldable bikes now which are ideally suited to inner city life and I came across this great round up from Green Tenant…

greentenant.blogspot.com/2009/12/folding-bike-for-urban-apartment.html

No impact man has been mentioned here a few times, and it’s refreshing to see that he’s still gaining a lot of media attention, I came across a post of his recently which is a summary of some of his favourite posts from the past few months, so a great place to dip your toe into the world of No Impact man…

noimpactman.typepad.com/blog/2009/11/no-impact-mans-environmental-howtos.html

My second post on interesting items found overseas…

I’m sure we all know that one of the biggest ways we can help the environment (and one of the easiest to do, especially when renting) is to abandon your car.

I wont go into any more detail here, I mainly just want to tell you about a great magazine I came across in San Francisco (but published in the Czech Republic) that is published by and supports the ‘World Carfree network‘, they make those ‘one less car’ stickers, so you’ve probably seen their hand ywork around without realising.

The magazine is full of interesting and concise articles on issues such as urban planning, artwork and eco towns, sometimes a little repetitve, but a great read never-the-less.

Find more here.