Whether you live in Berkeley, Brick, Manchester, Toms River or any other city or township in New Jersey you know that the weather can be brutal. With our mix of rain, snow, windblown salt our possessions can take a beating. That is why it is important to have a well-maintained garage door serve as a gatekeeper for our stuff. The garage door isn’t just the thing that lets us in the house at the end of a long day. It is one of the things that keep those who shouldn’t be in our house, on the outside.

While it is true that we rely on the garage door, most of us probably around 600 times a year, we rarely think of maintaining it. That is opening and closing the door 600 times. We will call someone to who does garage door repair in Brick, or Berkely, or Toms River when the door won’t open or close, or worse. They have been known to fall on the car parked in the garage.

We don’t really consider the garage door until it doesn’t wo ... Read more »

There are pawn shops everywhere. There are pawnshops in Freehold, Marlboro, Brick, Manalapan, and every other corner of New Jersey.  Pawnshops are new. They are becoming more mainstream since the History Channel hit show Pawn Stars hit the airwaves. But just what does a pawn shop do.

At it core, a pawnshop, say a pawnshop in Freehold, for instance, a repository for history, a place to get loans, a place to get cash fast. They are a kind of small bank specializing in loans to people that wouldn’t qualify elsewhere. In fact, in Italy where they were invented, in the Lombardi region of Italy, they came to be known as Lombard banks.

But the pawnshop is so much more than just a place where people get loans. They are a place where history is transferred from one person to the next. The pawnbroker is a kind of matchmaker. They buy, sell or loan money on items that have some value. Those items may be antiques, jewelry, etc. Today’s pawnshop ha ... Read more »