Get ready for millions of layoffs - Home Depot employees, construction suppliers, architects, furniture stores, landscapers, carpet salesmen ...

Yes, the crash in housing is leading to a massive and rapid crash at Home Depot and any company associated with feeding the housing beast. The suppliers to the housing bubble are just like Cisco and Level 3 Communications way back in the dot-com days, and most will now go belly-up, and their employees sadly shown the door (who will then default on their mortgages).

Get ready for some shocking performance and layoff numbers throughout the DIY and construction supply business, it just can't be avoided at this point in the cycle with housing starts crashing 30% - 50% in most areas.

When bubbles unwind, they unwind. When historic, epic bubbles unwind, they take the entire economy with 'em. Thank you Alan Greenspan.

Home improvement business slows with housing market

The slowdown threatens to shut down First Choice Flooring for good. "We haven't seen it this bad in 10 years," she said. "I'm considering selling it because of the market."

Trisler's First Choice Flooring is one of several businesses feeling the chill of the "cooling" housing market.

Sales of existing homes are down 33 percent and applications for new-home construction permits are slowing sharply. The declines are causing sales to drop at many local businesses that supply residential housing with products from carpets to sod for front lawns.

"Everybody is feeling it," said Molenaar, executive vice president for the California Professional Association of Specialty Contractors' San Diego chapter. "They just have to weather the storm."

Dick Marsala, a salesman for Direct Carpet Sales in San Marcos, said sales at his store are down at least 35 percent from last year.

"I can't figure it out," he said. "The economy's supposedly great and people are working.

An Encinitas home decorations store owner, who didn't want to be named, said store traffic has dropped from about 500 people per day three years ago to 10 today."People are scaling down," the owner said.