Category: Houlton Maine

Why Does It Take So Long To Foreclose On A House In Maine?

You see it, the house in Maine with no one home, the grass hay field high, idling waiting for real estate foreclosure.

Seasons come, go and you wonder why does it take so long to foreclose on a house in Maine?

Welcome To Maine. You’re Here. You Made It! Affordable Housing In Maine Happens.

The news headlines squawk loudly our country is desperate for affordable housing.

Building materials costs are going up up up while despair grows for young first-time home buyers needing a place of their own to raise a Maine family.

We all want the state’s population to grow and where is everyone going to live?

So the light bulb comes on. If new construction is not meeting the housing demand because too expensive. If your average local Maine home buyer cannot afford the monthly mortgage payments.

What about foreclosure homes in Maine to ease the kink in the hose of affordable housing?

Tapping into the steady crop of empty Maine foreclosure homes to recycle them into affordable housing stock?

Small Maine Towns Have Smaller Priced Affordable Housing. Less For More.

The sooner the better too.

Because lack of winter heat, no power for the early spring water run off sump pump. Then years of hot summer sun blistering the peeling paint, fall leaves piling up and rotting.

Wild animals moving in and doing destruction. The broken window where the bird came in and lays on the living room rug without a proper burial.

And please, don’t open that refrigerator left fully loaded two years ago when the power got cut off for lack of payment.

Along with the heaping cat boxes, the house is empty and stuck in time, waiting for the slowly moving wheels of foreclosure justice.

A couple years vacant with the front door wide open and no one home. Just the home owner left. Everything else ran sacked crying for a 30 year dumpster. No water works draining attempted, the furnace is kaput.

The longer empty, the harder the rehab to “bring it all home” as Johnny Cash would hum.

But still, if better sooner than later, the Maine foreclosure home could be rescued, it’s win win.

Enjoying Maine’s Four Seasons And Working Remotely Online. Welcome To Maine Live Here, Work Globally Option.

For the new proud Maine real estate tax paying homeowner, for the community where you need affordable housing.

Foreclosures on Maine homes take a long time.

By law, the homeowner has to be 120 days behind on monthly mortgage payments before foreclosure action can begin.

Courts everywhere are back logged and out of state lenders are out of the loop on what’s happening to the collateral for a house loan good or bad. Lots of distressed mortgage loan inventory across the country makes it just one more delinquent property to herd through the judicial process.

Why else do foreclosures take so long on a house in Maine?

Someone is living there. Not paying rent but clinging, handing on despite the last call pleas to leave. Refusing to move despite the deputy sheriff eviction notices.

What’s the hurry? Hold your horses. Knowing it can take up to nine months or longer to finally get a judge’s eviction judgement to stick.

Best Location To Build Your New Maine House Is? Depends On Which Part Of The Life Movie You Are In Today.

(Often the keys for cash route is the quickest way to “help” the home owner or renter to pick up the pace and move along).

What else slows down the house foreclosure process? Divorce, bankruptcy all combined with eviction mixed together with the foreclosure legal proceedings. The wheels of justice are expensive and slow moving as the foreclosure winds slowly through the court system.

Mortgage loan modification, mediation, events like COVID can all “pause” the foreclosure process unless a short sale, deed in lieu of foreclosure remedy happens.

And when a bank does get the foreclosed property back in their REO inventory of non-performing loan units, more delay.

Getting bids for the trash out, changing locks, boarding up broken windows, yard work to cut up fallen tree limbs and reclaiming the shaggy tall lawn.

Seasons change as the empty unloved, unheated neglected Maine home deteriorates and slides further downhill into decay.

House Building, Your Maine Home Design Can Help Or Hurt Total Costs. Adjust, Pivot And Be Ready To Rethink The Construction Variables.

Eventually a licensed Maine real estate agent or appraiser roams through the property making notes on a clipboard.

Bids for repairs or sold pretty much as is, where is. It’s like real estate triage for this particular Maine local market.

Not one size fits all on how to approach getting the foreclosure back into the real estate market housing inventory.

Many need more than DIY skills and rehab loans are more lengthy but rewarding to see a house on the brink of disaster pulled back from being

smashed down and loaded into a dump truck to be hauled away.

Those house lots look like missing teeth in a Maine community.

The what should the bank or government agency list the property for number is arrived at and getting the foreclosure on the market happens.

Maine Outdoor Winter Snow Does Not Hamper The Farm Yard Animals. They Adapt, Expect The Season Change And Make It Work For Them.

When the bank that made the loan is in Maine, the pulling it back out of the fire can be sped up because everything is local.

The circles are smaller, a few phone calls or emails can make such a difference.

Local Maine bank lenders works best all the way around for a slew of reasons.

Local Bank Lenders Work Best In Small Rural Maine Real Estate Markets. – Mooers Realty

The house in Maine where the owner skips town and it’s left empty.

No tenant to use tear gas to remove (I mean serve them with evictions paperwork and start navigating through the legal court process).

What Happens When Grubs Move Into The Neighborhood. Your Lawn Gets Damaged, Pecked, Rolled Back.

Doesn’t the bank lender care or even know payments are not being made?

Big out of state banks have so many foreclosures, are spread all over creation with many departments. Reachable at five and six digit extensions. But good luck tracking down who you need to talk to at the bank or whoever bought up the block of non-performing foreclosure mortgage loans.

It’s like a rudderless ship. No captain, lost at sea and years can fly by that way. So better loan making to reduce the risk of foreclosure. Using local mortgage lenders that are a much bigger help than far away lenders with no connection to the community, county, state.

The foreclosure process eats up a lot of time because it’s a lawsuit with courtrooms, lawyers, judges are involved.

But if less foreclosures happened with tighter local lending underwriting guidelines reforms? Providing more creative loss mitigations options, streamlining the legal process.

And if local banks in the area jumped in to help speed up the foreclosure through short sales.

To incentivize quick bank home sales to quickly return affordable housing stock to the market.

Maine Small Town Living, Nothing Compares.

Then foreclosure houses would not stay off line so long and be in better shape to re-cycle. To ease some of the demand for affordable housing.

These days, smart Maine municipalities are speeding up foreclosure on tax acquired properties.

The Maine towns need the cash to fill potholes, pave and snowplow roads, fund education, pay for salaries and infrastructure building repairs.

The lien placed on a Maine home delinquent in real estate tax payments is a ticking bomb. Set to go off and detonate starting eighteen months with no taxes paid and a lien goes on the house title.

Baxter State Park, Hiking Mt Katahdin In Piscataquis County Maine.

The lot, structures become the towns at the end of at least three years of no paid property taxes.

Instead of waiting another year or two or three after that hoping the owner can redeem, those foreclosed properties are now being marketed online and sold to new performing taxpayers.

To get them off the books and tax generating again.

With empty unheated, unoccupied houses, the sooner the better works best.

Like a patient on the operating table, the longer he or she lies there the odds of survival lessen not improve.

The solution to speed up the Maine house mortgage loan or delinquent real estate tax foreclosure process?

Attack the problem from a local level. Maine banks making the original loan have mortgage centers in Vacationland.

Deed in lieu of foreclosure, debt to Maine Care for nursing home debt and delinquent real estate taxes can be debt with locally way way faster than many states and time zones away.

Those Maine foreclosure houses can be the answer to easing affordable housing inventory for folks begging to stop renting, start building ownership equity in their own place.

If the Maine house foreclosure takes 370 days to settle, another 180 days to sell, that is eating up a lot of time. That the Maine house suffers from poor weather and neglect, maybe even vandalism when no one is home. Local remedies to speed up the Maine house foreclosure process are in place.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton Maine 04730 USA

March 30, 2026
Exploring My Area Of Maine On A Minibike Growing Up

Growing up in Maine, did you have a minibike?

My first minibike was a 3.5 horsepower Briggs and Stratton model. Just a simple, low-cost minibike that was dark green with knobby tires.

It has a thick long cushion seat to make up for a serious lack of suspension. No gears, the minibike equipped with a centrifugal clutch. Just twist the throttle and away you go.

Straight gas, nothing to mix and fun to ride minibike to explore the area when farm chores, schoolwork were completed.

Simple, Affordable Minibike

I would ride the minibike around my Maine family farm field roads, woods trails and in the beginning stayed pretty close to home.

I was nine years old. My Dad has picked up the minibike I earned with potato picking money at the Sear store in Presque Isle Maine.

Riding the minibike around the farm was fun. But eventually longer excursions to my Aunt Ruth’s farm on the Callaghan Road was a frequent destination. Aunt Ruth lived with Freeman Taylor and ran a horse-riding summer camp.

Camp Little Ponderosa was just a couple miles away by car.

On the minibike, it was about three miles going up and over the Interstate 95 overpass on the Mooers Road.

Mooers Family Farm Houlton Maine

Then crossing the Ludlow Road near my Uncle Fred and Molly’s farm.

Then after looking both ways, zig-zagging to taking a trail through farm fields and tree plantation up through a horse back or esker of gravel deposits on Holland Taylor’s farm. Always, always wearing a helmet.

It was the same route used on the family snowmobile in the winter months, a blue 12.8 horsepower Sno Jet.

The trail just covered with white fluffy snow and I was dressed more warmly with layers.

On minibike or snowmobile, you ended up in the same place. The Lane gravel pit which was just behind, to the east of my Aunt Ruth’s summer horse riding camp.

I put a straight pipe on the minibike engine that was anything but high performance.

Only so much you could do to squeeze a little more speed out of the engine usually used on lawnmowers not a motor bike.

High test gas, experimenting with a different chain sprocket configuration all slightly modified the first minibike.

My neighbors Chris and Bryon Williams had minibikes too. Blue 4 horsepower Bonanza minibike models, a pair of them.

We would ride down the Hagan Road to farm roads that led to Cary Mills .

Over toward the town dump and Donald Guy’s gravel pit. Mostly dirt roads and staying off paved ones where traffic was a danger. And knowing we were not licensed motorcyclists yet and way too young to take the road test.

The minibike was freedom.

It was fun to have the privilege to ride with my friends and go places without mom and dad carting me around here and there. The minibike provided a variation of the same feeling of independence that I got riding the snowmobile with my countryside neighborhood friends.

It was not all gas-powered transportation either growing up in rural Maine. Summer meant going up into Market Square peddling a three-speed banana bike. The same feeling of independence provided weekly riding my bike with the long leopard seat into 5 Franklin Avenue to mow lawns.

The money-making gig grass clipping summer job passed down by my brother Brian.

It paid a whopping five dollars and a included an icy cold can of White Rock black raspberry soda a week. Money carefully managed from farm jobs, birthdays, Christmas gifts, mowing lawns was funneled into the minibike fund.

Helmets, repairs and modifications nibbled at the hard-earned fund that led to bigger and better. Eventually trading in the Sears minibike for one purchased at Tingley Brother’s Garage on the North Road or US RT 1 in Houlton Maine.

The orange Chibi was a serious step up for a mini bike.

3 Speeds, 58cc 2 Cycle Engine Powered The Chibi Minibike

It was really a miniature dirt bike with three speeds, a manual clutch, and tuned exhaust on the 2-cycle mixed oil 58cc Rockwell Industries engine.

The Chibi made by Bridgestone came in two models. For $285 you could but a basic blue model. For $315 you could get a snazzy orange Mopar color paint job scheme and a headlamp, taillight. This helped extend the range of the trips and when I had to be home.

Our parents allowed a group of us kids to take our minibikes to camp out with sleeping bags overnight. Looking back, I really appreciated the freedom I had growing up on a Maine farm. My parents trusted me to make good decisions and had loosened up over the years raising me and my three older brothers.

Fast forward to my own children.

Put on a helmet, tighten it up the chin strap. They started out with four red and white Honda minibikes that were three speeds with a clutch, around 50cc power plants.

I could not find a local outlet to purchase them so went across the border to Dave’s Sport Center in Woodstock New Brunswick Canada. The duty was 28 dollars for the Honda’s from Japan.

Then the growing kids graduated to four dark blue Yamaha 125 cc four-cycle off-road motorbikes. Taller, more bike for bigger trail riders. You could add a light kid and make them legally road worthy.

I know how much I appreciated having the freedom to trail ride growing up and the ability to explore with friends and on my own.

What is it like around you? The minibike was my ticket to find out growing up on a Maine family farm.

Did you have a minibike growing up? What kind, what was the experience like? Were you trusted by your parents to leave the yard and did you have earned freedom that looking back you really appreciate now?

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730

October 28, 2025
Picking Potatoes On A Northern Maine Aroostook County Farm

One spud, two spuds, picking potatoes on a Northern Maine Aroostook County farm.

Was it hard for kids to head out into the early morning darkness to the Maine potato farm field? What work ethic lessons were learned for youth relied on to get the potatoes basket picked, poured into barrels, trucked from the Maine farm field for winter storage?

One Basket At A Time! Picking Maine Potatoes A Skill Learned By The Lucky Youth Growing Up In A Fall Harvest Potato Farm Field.

Have you ever picked potatoes along with your family and friends to earn money for school clothing?

The valuable list of skills and attitudes learned picking Northern Maine potatoes.

Toiling in the farm field under all kinds of weather over school harvest recess is a worthwhile entry level job. But from the outside looking in, today’s youth and parents not exposed to the fall harvest potato picking tradition, it is easy to overlook the learning experience.

So what was it like and why were area Maine youth relied on as an vital component for the fall harvest of potatoes?

My Dad and mom, northern Maine potato farmers said kids did a better job handling the potato harvest picking the crop. Less damage to the valuable farm field potato harvest crop than from fast moving mechanized machinery like harvesters caused. Better for Mother Nature too with less erosion from air harvesters harnessing kid power to pick this year’s crop.

Your family household goes to bed the night before to prepare for the early rise and shine during potato harvest.

By 5AM, you are finishing a hearty breakfast for the day ahead in the Maine potato farm field.

Picnic Food Just Tastes Better Looking At This When Munching What Gets Fished Out Of The Basket. Potato Pickers Move Field To Field In Fall Harvest Colors.

The fresh air during fall potato harvest improves the taste of your lunch, all the the snacks. What you munched on carefully packed to lug to the field.

Along with your water jug, extra warm clothes, back up pairs of fresh brown jersey work gloves.

You learned early to be careful with your lunch box, extra clothes, water jug to keep them from being run over by the barrel truck.

The Maine area potato farmer that hired you for the fall harvest will be at your address with a covered pickup soon.

Barely sunrise, rounding up and delivering the young potato pickers to the new field to dig today. Or to finish up the one from yesterday that was not completed due to sheer size, too much rain, frost or or mechanical breakdowns. You arrive in the field layered with long underwear, extra clothing layers because you can see your breath in the crisp, frosty early morning air.

One by one you hop out of the back of a pickup or van used to collect your fellow potato pickers for this year’s harvest.

Before heading to your “section” in the row after row of un-earthed, not dug potato field, your field boss hands you a fresh pack of tickets. You have an assigned number, usually 50 up to 100 tickets wrapped in an elastic band. A barrel of potatoes weighs 165 pounds.

Yesterday’s barrel tickets tallied the night before. How many barrels did you pick? Count the tickets you get back or the ones missing from your original stack.

Rolling Farm Fields Planted To A New Crop Of Potatoes. Next Year This Will Be Grain. See The Snow White And Yellow Plants?

It takes at least four filled to the brim and over baskets of fresh dug potatoes to fill a barrel. And to earn the right to slide one of your numbered tickets out of the pack to wedge into the groove, on the top of the barrel stave.

That ticket with your number announces to the World that you claim this full barrel for 25, 60 cents or whatever the farmer is paying you this season.

Piece work not an hourly wage. If you don’t produce, you don’t make much or anything.

Clear a spot. You put the new empty barrel on it’s side, carefully using two hands to fill it with potatoes. The ones exposed by the squeaking potato digger that back and forth passes your section over and over through out the day of outdoor labor. As you and your fellow potato pickers advance across the wide open farm field one harvested row at a time.

Pick Them Clean, Get Them All Into The Potato Basket. Do These Kids Look Abused, Picked On Out In The Maine Organic Farm Potato Field?

Your section is how long a portion of the farm field you think you can manage through out the day or until you move to a new one.

The trick to be just getting the last potato picked up and deposited in your basket before moving into the next row. Hopefully the one that was just freshly dug that only good timing and planning causes. Pick a schedule that matches the digger speed to keep caught up. Work steady.

Lessons earnred young piicking maine potatoes in th farm field!

But like life, things happen and you can find yourself getting behind in the Maine potato field.

One of the many observations taught early in the Maine potato field. To learn something that sticks with you for life.

If you took too big a potato field section, you will run out of steam and get behind.

Claim The Barrel, Potato Picking Ticket With Your Number On It.

Some potato fields are grassier than others and have sods to wrestle with to make sure you “pick them clean”.

In the Maine potato field, it is no quality spud left behind. And remember that “bruisers are losers”.

Be careful handling the potatoes.

Slowly dump the basket into the empty farm field barrels. Before placing the next empty barrel upright every other row. So the farm truck can have a lane to retrieve the full ones headed to the potato house storage. You clear any spuds under the barrel first and place it there. In a spot in your section where it a short trip to avoid wasted steps, needless lugging.

No rotten potatoes and leave the green ones or rocks in the field not dumped in the barrels please.

Don’t over fill those barrels lifted up with a boom that lands them on the platform. You don’t want the barrel hoist tong to smash or slice any spuds. Each filled potato barrel is hoisted up from the ground to the truck body using tongs.

Thrown with position to land on the top of the barrel like a lasso. Then tightened up by lifting, using electrical or hydraulically piston pump that grips the barrel tight and secure. To swing up and onto the empty stake truck.

Not the easiest job either to roll full potato barrels to the back of that truck lumbering up a side hill.

Moving those barrels like a game of Tetris, to fill the space quickly. To create a full load to bee line to the potato house.

Then to hurry back with the empties to throw off to each field section of pickers for the repeat the pick, fill, slide on a ticket barrel number filling process.

The further away from the potato house in Houlton Maine the barrel or bulk body trucks have to haul, the more apt a shortage of empties is going to happen.

Nothing hurts production like running out of barrels and trying to make good use of the down time waiting for empties. Picking the tops off the rows you get behind so you can cover your section faster when the fresh empty barrels get tossed onto your section from the truck.

Eating lunch early, doing your business in the woods for a nature call. All part of potato picking field operations. Hopefully your water jug was put in the freezer, slowly un-thawing as the day unfolds.

It Starts With Planting Potatoes In The Maine Farm Field Back In Spring. Cultivating The Hills, The Potato Rows Over The Summer, Harvesting In Fall.

Potato tops need to be removed, shaken as pickers advance across the Northern Maine farm field.

When do you eat? When the tractor pulling potato digger is turned off signally the lunch break. Or sometimes early than noon time because of tractor or digger break down.

There are digger lags hooked together to create the bed with spaces to filter out the potato field dirt.

To lay out the two or more field rows into a flat shaped table of new golden or whatever color spuds to fill a basket to add to the barrel.

Blossoms On Houlton Maine Potato Farm Field.

More on picking Maine potatoes explained by someone who grew up on a farm and picked from age five and on like my three older brothers.

You start out picking.

Graduate to the farm truck or maybe a harvester work shift where you stand and pick out the rocks, the rot and debris.

So it won’t end up taking up space in the potato storage bins.

Over the winter months, the same Northern Maine farmer can use the field tested pickers to pack.

Put up potatoes trailer truck loads shipped to southern markets for distribution.

So what is the occasional cry that picking potatoes is child abuse?

It is hard for someone that never picked potatoes or missed out on the fall harvest tradition to grasp the experience.

You never did it, how could you know without spending time out in the Maine potato field?

School students spending the three to four weeks out in the Maine potato field are social, talk and laugh as they pick, move from to a new harvest section of the farm.

The Red Sox are in a pennant race that fall. Someone has a radio next to your section. It’s one for all and all for one to get those spuds out of the ground before a killing frost. Before snow or dodging rain drops that can interfere with the potato picking process. May work later tonight, or Sunday depending on how’s the weather been this fall in Maine.

Parking Near Fenway. It’s A Trick And Usually Costs A Few Coins. If The Rex Sox Make The Play Offs, Maine Potato Field Workers Tune In, Listen In To Games.

The potato pickers see the outdoor beauty of the early morning fog, the brilliant fall leave color change and fill their lungs with fresh air.

Worked muscles bending over filling potato baskets and lugging them to fill the empty barrels gets students into shape for soccer or other school sports ahead. The field dirt and dust will wash off in the tub or shower tonight when they get home. They tell Mom and Dad about the wildlife they saw out in the field today.

Heading to the small downtown of a Maine community to shop for a new winter jacket is part of the Saturday night learning experience.

Shopping with your own earned money sharpens your spending skills. And if you don’t perceive a value, you keep looking. Impulse spending control is easier to master when it’s your hard earned money. Not twenty dollar bills spit out, handed to you from the mom and dad ATM.

Locally Sourced, Farm To Table Maine Produce, Vegetables Like Potatoes. Priceless. Know Your Local Grower! Maine Is The 5th Largest Potato Producing State.

Learning how to save not just spending is money management.

But what if you never had an entry level job? Did not work for a wage and have to do a good job or you are not asked back the next Maine fall potato harvest? What’s that? Life’s not fair? Life is what you make it. Life is entry level jobs and responsibility to accepting without griping or weaseling out of it. That you have to show up and perform to be an asset not liability.

You stick with it because your family needs the money, the help buying your clothes.

You in turn take better care of clothes you purchase with your own money that is real World right?

The farmer depends on your to help his family get the crop out and into storage. Grit, determination and dealing with colder weather and days when maybe you are not handstand happy about heading to the field. But you do go and eventually less bothers you as your realize the value of this exercise.

Northern Maine Aroostook County Potato Field. A Very Valuable Work Ethic Experience. This Is One Of Your First Entry Level Manual Labor Field Experiences.

Kids that pick and work the fall Maine potato harvest look around and realize I did something worthwhile during the harvest break.

They feel good about themselves and part of something outside their home four walls and a roof. Independent, responsible and dreaming about what part of their picking check they get to spend as they see fit. What they would like to buy with their own money.

And whatever is purchased does not get broken or discarded after the newness is gone. Instead being respected, cared for and put away to protect it because they earned it. Worked too hard not to take care of whatever they bought with their own hard earned money.

Ask anyone who grew up picking Maine potatoes what they thought about the experience.

Some become farmers from the experience digging in the dirt. Remember “No farmer, no food”. You gotta eat at least three times a day.

The harvest workers are part of a proud, capable bunch and learn their value, developing their work ethic. It makes them proud to be from “The County” and that work ethic, dependability to show up and do a good days work is a rural Maine thing.

Four Or More Baskets Of Fresh Picked Maine Potatoes Fill A Barrel. The Barrel Weighs 165 Pounds. Don’t Forget Your Ticket.

Striving to do your part, to keep your potato field section picked clean and caught up and get along with the others on the potato chain gang.

You start to realize that you are not lazy, that you can stick with something that is not for pure entertainment value. Glad my kids learned from the experience of picking Maine potatoes.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

September 23, 2025
What’s It Like Living In A Small Maine Town?

Maine is a handful of cities and over 450 small community rural towns.

Sixteen counties and the one I live in is the largest east of the Mississippi in land mass. Aroostook County, sparsely populated, a little longer drive time to access but so worth the extra effort.

What’s it like living in a small Maine town?

How to share the experience short and sweet? To reflect an accurate representation of day to day life here today, yesteryear and with a hint of tomorrow. To “bring it all home” for someone curious about the area or to use promoting a small Maine town.

Houlton Maine, State Soap Box Derby Site For Down Hill Racing.

This blog post realizes people use their past as a measuring stick of the future.

That your previous experiences heavily influence your perspective of any new place. Plus what works best for you for surroundings shifts and changes throughout a person’s life stages.

So when someone, anyone asks you “what is it like living in (fill in the blank with small Maine town name)?”

It’s important to realize the longer you live anywhere else on Earth, the less you arrive to a small Maine town with a totally blank slate.

It’s like music, food, school, work, relationships, anything. Everyone does not come to the same take away conclusion describing anything.

The bullet points on what we love and dislike the most is not in the same order on the gotta have / don’t want list of where to call home.

Maine’s Highest Mountain, Mt Katahdin. Do You Like To Hike?

So the what’s it like here in a small Maine town question is answered with what was it like where you came from before?

What did you like where you used to live? What was missing or in short supply that you wish was in greater abundance? Something caused you to want to leave your own home and to consider a small Maine town as the new setting.

Brand new to Maine with just the tourism blurb, a little local past history to shape your expectations?

If where you lived last was a sardine packed together crowded city, your take away reaction to small Maine town life will differ greatly. Then say the perspective from a person relocating from another typical rural small-town experience. Not so sharp a contrast to adjust to over time for the latter.

Wagons Pulled By A Team Of Horses. Still Happens Farming In Maine. Welcome To Wide Open Space, Four Seasons Of Maine Recreation To Discover.

If you want your small Maine town to grow, you have to tap into your local brain trust.

Knowing the value and skill set of your local individuals is key. Community involvement from each and every one is needed so no one is sitting on the sidelines. Someone should not be trying to describe the small Maine town if they have not experience what it is like first hand.

They may do the best they can with generalities but after awhile, all the small Maine town write ups and presentations kinda sound the same. Many have a negative spin and it is obvious the writer can not see themselves living here by their description.

The people who live in the small Maine town are the community.

Maine Needed Water Fountains In Their Community Down Town Areas.

Not just the grid work of streets, empty buildings along Main Street, the rows and rows of housing stock.

It’s all about working together with other locals unique individuals to make sure your community shines brightly online. Putting your best foot forward, proudly believing in the local area in Maine you call your hometown.

The vibe, what’s it like summed up in a few words and short sentences is searched day and night online about small Maine rural towns.

That sound bite or snippet is amplified and pushed out into the media stream.

Unfortunately, trying to learn more about a small Maine town is difficult for web visitors if there is not a strong, positive hyper local online presence. Or just a lack of abundance of information to glean.

Bottle Like Maine Lake. Not A Ripple Today On The Lake In Maine.

Relying on a Reddit thread about your hometown or county from eight years ago is not accurate information.

Especially if posted by someone who has never ever stepped foot in your small Maine town.

Or as an unhappy teenager with a poor home life, they picked up and high tailed it never to return to said small Maine home town. And now feel the need to spread discontent and somehow blame the entire town for what went haywire.

Warning others to stay away, don’t you dare go there.

That black eye for the entire small Maine town population is not deserved but it’s everywhere you look with strong opinions from a keyboard warrior.

Even scanning what the tourism folks put online about your small Maine town can make you cringe. Lots of Maine towns had economies revolving around a single lumber mill, fish cannery or agriculture enterprise of some kind. Not very diversified and in deep trouble when that one trick pony employer industry locks the gate and shuddered the factory windows and doors.

Sponsoring A Small Maine Town Little League Team. Go Team!

Not all Maine small towns enjoy thriving economies.

But that’s what develops grit and fortitude and a higher degree of creativity. It makes how you spend volunteer time and financial resources done extremely carefully.

It’s what causes the feeling of being very invested in protecting, advancing and making the small Maine town what it can be. It’s not about just throwing lots of dollars at the problem. Or expecting your local, state and federal government to “fix the problem”.

Living in your small Maine town is like being a member of a very large family.

So when you read a tourism snippet that says your hometown used to be a happening, thriving place.

But not anymore, and everything is described past tense. Why would you instantly feel enticed to visit? You would not. And that write up is not how the locals who live in that small Maine community feel. They are protective, a little stand offish when they see the out of state plate. Sometimes more so from one state over another because of personal experience.

Maine Lighthouses, Big For Tourism And Fun For Locals To Visit. Over 60 Of Them To Collect Around Vacationland.

It takes broadcasting your local achievements, not relying on someone with their own slam bam personal slant to get the spotlight.

I think home grown, fire your belly writers that live where the four color chamber of commerce flyer describes are key. So do local social media feeds from around around the town, the region and county that are fresh, plentiful and constant.

So do whatever you can to put your small Maine town on the map. Study what works in other communities around Maine is easier than ever with the Internet that connects us all.

So it all circles back around to local what’s happening now.

Lots of buzz, local news, local events, plenty of eye candy on the outdoor natural beauty. And making sure every local who is lucky enough to be interviewed in anyway conveys the excitement, enthusiasm.

Making Music, Local Volunteers Fill The Outdoor Theatre To Make Music For Locals.

Building on the rich local community history but not being boat anchored stuck to the past. To a point in time when the economy suddenly shifted in a major way the wrong way.

Smart Maine town planners head in the direction of promoting what we have lots of… space, unspoiled four-season recreation space.

Fewer but friendlier hard-working people, a simpler way of living that’s lower cost, less crime, all about family.

Space, quiet, natural beauty, outdoor recreation, solitude, the intimacy of how tight small Maine towns can be. It’s special. That is the drum beat sauce in the background of everything getting posted, promoted online in many small Maine towns.

Small Maine Town Sports Teams. Hockey Players Go “Good Game Good Game” Down The Line.

Because It’s not like this that many places. Maine, the way life should be remember?

A small town in Maine can not try to compete with a larger population area who has the people to financially support what they promote as a reason to visit. But it can turn the tables and promote what we have so so much of that is lacking in rural areas.

The face cards for a small Maine town are playing the advantage of what we have an endless supply of that never runs out. Taking a David with a sling shot simple but effective approach to nimbly out pace the slow moving Goliath.

I love shoe string creative marketing approaches to get the word out.

Hitching a ride with others in your network sharing on their channels what you produce on your own.

What is the local area like?

What Was It Like In Black And White. Small Maine Towns Have Rich History To Preserve.

What’s it like living in small rural Maine town?

Let’s hear from the locals who have lived her for a considerable amount of time. Not from someone who has spent very little time in your Maine community if at all. Or anyone who their expectations were not well matched and the fit was poor from the get go. And they will harp about it to anyone who will listen.

You don’t want that kind of community thumbnail sketch to be all there is to glean online.

Failure to thrive happens when you stop believing in your small Maine town. I see in my job as a Maine real estate broker the tide is coming this way. There is a shift of folks wanting to live a different day to day. And we all need to speak up and explain why this is the place we are proud to call home here in Maine.

Curious About Why You Live In A Particular Small Maine Town. Ask Locals, Give Them The Mic, Quote Their Responses In Your Local Press.

Why do you live in this particular small Maine rural town?

The person on the street is the best source for print, photo or video capture to share the local community spirit. The more you hear from the real World average Janes and Joes, the broader the appeal because each has their own specific private reasons. Let’s hear from real people in small town Maine communities.

Willing to concede some of the perks heading to Maine.

Replacing them, trading them in for ones that just don’t happen where they live now. A place that is expensive, impersonal and pretty much everything store bought.

Lobster From Maine Anyone? No One Has Anything Close To The Taste Of Fresh Maine Steamed Lobsters!

Welcome to small Maine towns where resourcefulness abounds and passion glows hot and strong.

Someone who moved from a crowded city will experience a small town very differently than someone who moved from a remote farming community. What one person finds peaceful and slow-paced, another might find boring or isolating.

So the focus on small Maine town living should be on the person. The ones living here, the one asking the question “what’s it like” and fishing for a relocation move if they like what they hear.

Rigging Up To Ski Down A Maine Snow Capped Mountain Slope.

What did you expect coming in to a small Maine town?

Everyone has a different take on what is pure bliss in life. Most of the gain is through the pain of pitching and creating what is missing. Or coming along side a group already struggling to create what you desire and you showed up at exactly the right time.

Help row the boat. Stoke the fire.

Be a positive proponent of your small Maine home town.

Whether you were born there or not is not the issue. Your attitude and willingness to pitch in is what matters most. You showed up. Listening, contributing, having a role in how things roll in your small Maine town.

Bored, Waiting For Someone To Show Up With A Pair Of Wire Cutters. People Leave Crowded Cities For The Same Reason Of Feeling Penned In.

Knowing the small Maine town’s history, the ups and downs and why they happened as the locals struggled to adjust through trying economic times.

That’s important to combine with taking stock, creating the inventory of what we have that is attractive to someone that no long does.

Anyone moving to a small Maine town has a background, values and personal reasons for looking for a relocation. It is good to introduce yourself to anyone new to the area by listing why you love living here.

Welcome To Maine. You’re Here. You Made It!

It is also good to describe what the local small Maine community is not, how it might not be a good fit for someone looking for a faster pace of life.

You can not be all things to all people and an honest assessment of the local area has to take priority.

There is plenty to do for new community members and to replace ones that dies and fade away.

Maine Social Media Explained.

Here’s a Maine PBS film on how small Maine towns solve big problems.

My hometown of Houlton Maine just had a film premiere of A Moment In The Sun. The film showcasing the total solar eclipse that happened earlier this year in April in Houlton Maine.

Totality In The Last Place In The USA To Experience It. Houlton Maine’s Total Solar Eclipse.

If your small Maine town had a documentary story to share, who would you pick in the community to make the points? Build a case for living here? If trying to leave a positive impression and the best presentation, what local events or ways of life traditions would you salt and pepper through out the local production?

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

September 7, 2025
Maine High School Class Reunions

Going back to be with classmates, your Maine high school class reunion.

Have you been to a Maine class reunion at whatever school system you finished high school? If you have not, I suggest making every effort to attend your Maine high school class reunion.

Some say there is nothing more exciting, rewarding than reuniting with your childhood and high school class mates. Others would argue that period of my life was not all that rosy and why would I go back to relive the pain?

Maybe it is the 10th or earlier class reunion that spoils the habit of making an effort to attend your Maine high school reunion.

1975 Houlton Maine High School Class Reunion For The 50th Year!

If the classmates that moved away to return in swanky (leased) red sports cars and keep talking about their success, not asking about yours, that could sour the reunion.

In small Maine towns, the local community steps up and volunteers which in my book makes all the high school class graduates a “success”.

The longer you are out of high school and the more one by one you lose another reunion graduate, the tighter your class becomes.

Instead of a competition and comparing or defending your life so far since high school graduation, your class mates all pull together closer at reunions. News of the death of a high school classmate is a big part of it. That helps the rest wake up and notice we are not getting any younger. In my class of 1975 from Houlton High School we have lost 26 class mates since graduating.

Class of 1975 Class Reunion. This One In Houlton Maine To Celebrate 50 Years Being Out In Life.

The discussion when the get together is, say your 50th school reunion, shifts from jobs and promotions to how many grandchildren and comparing notes about health issues. How are you surviving losing your mate, the divorce, recovery from cancer, etc.

Just had my 50th Maine high school graduation celebration over a four day span.

Still thinking about the conversations, the laughter, the feeling of how much you miss these guys and gals. Some of my high school classmates for a slew of reasons missed the last reunion we nicknamed “The Shindig”. But I would bet most that were at this 50 year milestone reunion over the weekend will not want to miss another one for any reason.

Graduating From High School 50 Years Ago. Whoa. Long Time, Big Class Of 164 Members.

How do you answer in ten words or less “what have you been up to over the last half decade?

In my small Northern Maine town in Aroostook County of Houlton Maine, the high school’s alumni association is very strong and active. We get magazine newsletter editions of high school happenings around the year. I think this publication keeps fond thoughts of your classmates in focus.

When the latest alumni news edition comes in the mail or is opened up online and thumbed through digitally, most classmates beeline to their class year of high school graduation.

Maine 50th High School Graduation. Our Local Alumni Association Is A Strong One To Keep Us Connected.

News from your class, anything from a birth announcement to where someone took a trip or got together with another classmate or two. That hyper local Maine small town information is huge to stay connected with your high school classmates.

If you see the year you graduated but no one took the time to insert a paragraph or two of something pertinent to just your class, it is sad. I feel bad when a class above or below me is left blank. No news is not good news. It’s MIA and off radar. Draws a blank of just white space.

There is always something to report that others would love to read and to help the connection with your year graduating high school class.

Looking to re-connect with old classmates that you lost touch with after grabbing the rolled up sheet of paper and tossing the square hat with the dangling tassel high in the air?

Here is a video below that shows just one event of many held during my class of 1975 Houlton Maine high school graduation activities.

Do you regularly attend high school class reunions?

Does your high school education center hold a multi year event to celebrate with graduating alumni? When was the last time you re-toured your old high school or is it still standing? Remember where your locker was and who shared one beside, up or below you? The memories come back with the aid of a high school open house tour with your other classmates who help you “remember”.

The relationships began in the halls of your Maine school, from walking to it or riding the big yellow bus together are ones that only grow stronger.

What about you? As the years advance after graduation, after logging some miles outside the “My Old School”, the heart string tug of a Maine high school graduation reunion intensifies for me. Can’t wait for the next class reunion here in rural Maine.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

August 20, 2025
Hub Bub About Maine Lawn Grubs

Do you wonder about what happened, the big hubbub about Maine lawn grubs?

Damage to your Maine home lawn due to grubs. Like a lot of things, to get rid of lawn grubs in Maine requires near perfect timing and a tested method matter a lot. Grubs are most vulnerable in late summer to early fall when they are small and feeding near the ground’s surface. It’s not once and done.

Maine Lawn Grubs Messing Up Pretty Green Landscaped Lawns In Maine. See What’s Happening Around The Ridgeway Sign Post In Houlton Maine?

Fall application, spring/summer maintenance to guard against the lawn grubs in Maine are needed.

One DIY organic method is applying beneficial nematodes.

They come live, refrigerated and time is of the essence to help them get established on your grub infested lawn.

These microscopic worms attack and kill grubs in the soil on Maine property owner lawns.

A box that covers about 2,000 square feet usually costs $30–$50.

Apply them in the evening after watering or rain, and keep the soil moist for at least two weeks to begin the lawn grub evictions.

Results can take a few weeks, but it’s a safe, natural approach that won’t harm pets, children, or pollinators.

Milky spore is another organic treatment that targets Japanese beetle grubs. It costs about $40–$60 per 10 lb bag and needs to be applied 3–6 times in the first year. It can take one to two years to see noticeable results, but it lasts for up to 10 years once established in the soil.

For faster results, chemical treatments are available to Maine home owners to apply to their lawns.

Preventative grub killers like Scotts GrubEx (active ingredient: chlorantraniliprole) cost about $20–$30 for a bag that covers 5,000 square feet. Apply in late June to early August. It prevents new grubs from developing and lasts several months. Helps to continue to attack lawn grubs.

If grubs are already active and damaging your lawn, curative treatments like Bayer 24-Hour Grub Killer Plus (active ingredient: trichlorfon) work faster.

See The Bare Spots, The Places No Grass Is Growing That Look Burned Out?

These cost about $25–$40 per bag and act within 24–72 hours use in your warfare with lawn grubs in Maine.

However, they only last a few weeks and should not be used repeatedly on your Maine lawns.

This grub fighting treatment can also harm bees and beneficial insects if misapplied.

For best prevention, Maine homeowners should avoid over watering Maine home lawns.

Grubs thrive in moist soil.

Water deeply once or twice a week rather than daily. Raise your Maine home lawn mowing height—beetles prefer to lay eggs in short grass.

De-thatch in early summer to reduce places where grub eggs can be laid around your Maine home lawn.

And attracting birds like starlings and robins by providing birdbaths or feeders is smart thinking—they naturally eat grubs. At night you can see where raccoons, starlings, skunks, lots of prey out in the backyard looking for a grub snack.

Looking around my Southern Aroostook County location, lawns with grub damage is everywhere. The local weather has called for rain a lot in the forecast and local grub predators have gone right to down. Big business for lawn repair outfits in Northern Maine. Do you mow your own lawn? Is there a problem where you live with lawn grubs?

Welcome To The Crown Of Maine, Aroostook County.

In places, it looks like large sections of lawn have been rototilled. Sod ripped back and exposed with pecking, rodent tilling obvious around my local area of Maine.

Getting rid of the pests once they move on to your property is not the easiest solution for lawn grubs in Maine.

To check if you have a grub problem, lift a square foot of sod in late August or September.

If you see more than five grubs per square foot, it’s time to treat. Living in Maine, somethings you have a grub hub bub to deal with but ask your neighbors.

Just have to ask around when you live in small Maine community.

Quiz the folks down at the corner store where you refuel with coffee each morning or where you get your hair cut and styled.

Mainers are quick to help and offer solutions that work like a charm that cost the least.

They will humbly share the mistakes they made that you want to avoid.

Or to relay what provided the best results for any life situation like lawn grubs in Maine.

Simple, want to help Maine towns are a rich resource. All you have to do is ask, let your Maine family, friends and neighbors know about your grub or whatever problem keeping you awake nights.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

June 9, 2025