Beware

Parents, grandparents, stepparents, siblings, cousins, uncles, aunts, brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law. When they offer advice on real estate, the buyer should beware.(Ellen James Martin is a columnist for The Baltimore Sun.)

Americans' hearts going out to the victims of the marathon bombing in Boston, which means, of course, con artists will have to take advantage of that. The Federal Trade Commission is warning people to be leery of charity solicitations from telemarketers. The agency advises people to: -- Ask for the charity's name if the telemarketer doesn't provide it immediately. (This alone should be a warning sign if the solicitor isn't forthcoming) -- Find out what percentage of your gift will go to the cause.

The idea for this week's cover story came from my vet, Dr. Leonard Pineau, who told me that his office was seeing an astonishing increase in Lyme disease. What made it even more interesting is that his practice is an urban one. Even dogs who are confined to concrete back yards are being infected, he told me, presumably by tick-carrying birds.What he said wasn't of immediate concern to my family, because we own cats and they are not very likely to contract the disease (although they do carry the deer tick that carries the spirochete bacteria)

It should be relatively easy for a judge to make a decision in the matter of the small landscape painted on a napkin by French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir ("U.S. court enters fray over painting," March 16). Museum collections managers and registrars adhere to the English Common Law concept, recognized in modern American jurisprudence, that deed does not follow theft, even after several changes of hands; the original owner remains the owner. Since the Baltimore Museum of Art was the original, legal owner of the painting (it having been left to the museum in an unchallenged will)

These days, when a commercial promises "From the (blank) that brought you (blank)," it's usually a trouble sign. The most blatant recent case of buyer-beware advertising came when Sony said that Daddy Day Camp came "From the studio that brought you Daddy Day Care." In reality, the comedy's producers chose to keep the characters -- played in the original by Eddie Murphy and Jeff Garlin -- but had to recast the roles. Trying to sell franchises by proxy, marketers invariably give fans inferior knockoffs of popular phenomena.

The first time Mary Glorioso heard that an apartment complex was going to be built in the wooded area behind her Harford County condominium was late last year. A neighbor had happened upon a surveyor who said the area was being cleared -- that week.Before that, Glorioso, and most of her neighbors in the Laurel Woods community, said they were told the wooded area was wetland that would never be developed.That was partly true. The area between Glorioso's home and the new project is wetland, but plans for another complex behind the wetland area had been approved by the county in 1984.

IN A CASE pitting banks against consumers, the Supreme Court has sent a unanimous message: Debtor beware. The court issued an opinion last week that state laws limiting credit card fees don't apply to banks located in another state. The ruling vindicates the decision by banks like Citibank to move their credit card operations to states with lenient banking laws. It also protects a lucrative source of revenue -- credit card companies reap more than $2 billion a year from late-payment fees.

Officer Cynthia McCrea's first time selling sex was easy.She peered into an open window of a white Lincoln Town Car at Calvert and Preston streets and struck a deal with the driver. Sex for $10.Baltimore police officers pounced and arrested a young man -- the first of 30 busts in a crackdown on prostitution during the weekend and McCrea's first collar posing as a hooker. "It was easy," the police officer proudly said later.The weekend Baltimore police sweep, dubbed "Operation Buyer Beware," netted an engineer for a prominent area company, a real estate agent and a downtown theater manager.

After a break of two days -- or would that be a pause? -- thoroughbred racing resumed yesterday in Maryland when nearly 5,000 patrons congregated at Laurel Park and an unheralded horse named Cynics Beware captured the opening-day feature.Pimlico ended its summer season Sunday with upturns in betting and attendance. That momentum carried over to Laurel Park as 4,901 customers, 5 percent more than last year, lined up for free admission and programs, dollar day at the concessions and the opportunity for investing in 10 live wagering events and countless others shown on TV.They were for the most part frustrated by the $75,000 Find Handicap on turf when Cynics Beware, a 5-year-old gelding ridden by Mario Pino, prevailed by a nose at 8-1 in an exciting photo finish over the favorite, Hardy's Halo, and his jockey, Edgar Prado.

Owners Dale and Joan Everett of Woodbridge, Va., can't be accused of poor memory, both in friendship and business. The Everetts commissioned trainer Dale Capuano to purchase Caveat's Shot for $30,000 in the 1996 yearling sale at Timonium. But a disagreement between the parties prevented Capuano from doing the training. After more than a year of marginal returns from Caveat's Shot, the Everetts returned to Capuano earlier this year. It paid off. The daughter of Caveat notched her second win this year for the reunited partnership in the $100,000 Maryland Million Ladies yesterday at Laurel Park.

My columnist and television pundit gigs have me thinking a great deal about the relative positions of the two parties heading into the midterm election cycle. For starters, the Democrats are ahead. Last November's elections gave the president a surprisingly strong victory and provided him with a comfortable margin in the U.S. Senate. These results have the usual suspects (Hollywood, academia, mainstream media) all aflutter with thoughts of an emergent progressive era in America. The picture is decidedly less rosy on the other side of the aisle.

The Internet and regulations enacted over the years by the Harford County government to make access to land use maps easier mean a quick Google search followed by a few mouse clicks will bring to the fingertips of any potential home buyer details about neighborhoods where they're looking. So, while it is possible to have a measure of sympathy for the people living in the 42 homes in the new Richardson's Legacy neighborhood when they complain about another 300 homes being built nearby at Magness Overlook, it's only a small measure of sympathy.

Everyone is a doctor until proven otherwise. I can show you my current medical license, but Shawn Nowlin couldn't have shown you anything ("Schools employee charged with sex with teen," Nov. 29). It is horrific that he allegedly got a 15-year-old girl pregnant. People bet their life that the person in front of them claiming to be a doctor can help. Chiropractors, acupuncturists and naturopaths, physician's assistants and nurse practitioners are not physicians and they should not call themselves "doctor" or let people call them that.

A growing number of young people are confronting a high-debt, low-wage trap that has more college grads working in the food service industry than as engineers ("Students trapped by high debt, low wages," Nov. 9). But how many engineering graduates didn't find jobs? Students are welcome to take courses in English, literature, history, sociology, ethnic studies, etc, but they should major in math, sciences, technology and health care. Or choose a trade and become welders, electricians, plumbers, mechanics or technicians.

The Republican mantra to get rid of regulations just grates my ears. And after Hurricane Sandy, the most recent example of climate chaos, caused incalculable damage, the Republicans are suggesting privatizing search and rescue operations. Anyone who calls for less regulations is heartless and somehow ignores the deaths left in the anti-regulatory wake. The latest travesty are the illnesses and deaths caused by the New England Compounding Center ("Report finds lax pharmacy oversight," Oct. 31)

This caught my eye this morning: Zappos, the online shoe and clothing retailer, lost a court battle in trying to defend its Terms of Service language from lawyers who are suing the company for losing the online data of 24 million customers. Most businesses who operate websites and even mobile apps have what's called a "Terms of Service" contract that explicitly states the legal relationship between the company and the user. In most cases, the TOS will require users to engage in less-costly arbitration before filing a lawsuit, should a problem arise.

Pedagogical alert: Beware of city school toilets and county school air.The solution to the Iraqi crisis is a unilateral U.S. declaration that Saddam Hussein has backed down.Tupac Shakur did not deserve to die, no matter what he said.And last, a word on foreign policy: Beat them Yankees!Pub Date: 9/18/96

Americans going to Spain for the Olympics, Expo '92 in Seville and other events next year should beware of thieves who break the windows of cars stalled in traffic, according to a travel advisory issued by the State Department.Observing that Spain has little history of violent crime but does suffer from petty crime in tourist areas, the department says unsuspecting visitors can lose their belongings to bicyclists and motorcyclists but most often to pedestrians.

Online listings offered the Northeast Baltimore home for rent at a bargain price. The problem? It's not for rent — it's for sale. And the owners had nothing to do with those ads. This sort of scam proliferates on websites and in rental advertisers, perpetrated by con artists who want to separate renters from their security deposits. Real estate agent Rusty Miller, who represents the owners of the Cedmont home, said his office has fielded more than 100 calls and emails in the past 11/2 months from people interested in renting it — and who fortunately did enough poking around to find his name.

Your recent article about surveillance cameras in Baltimore was alarming ("City surveillance camera system to expand, July 21). In Baltimore, the number of cameras has grown from fewer than 200 in 2005 to more than 800 today, if one includes the 250 private cameras the city can access. Yet the city wants even more cameras. The Board of Estimates recently agreed to create a database that will give the Police Department access to more private security cameras to create a bigger surveillance system.