diff --git a/homeassistant/__init__.py b/homeassistant/__init__.py
index 52cb7f8a002..f8c488f97e2 100644
--- a/homeassistant/__init__.py
+++ b/homeassistant/__init__.py
@@ -171,7 +171,7 @@ def create_bus_job_handler(logger):
         except Exception:  # pylint: disable=broad-except
             # Catch any exception our service/event_listener might throw
             # We do not want to crash our ThreadPool
-            logger.exception("BusHandler:Exception doing job")
+            logger.exception(u"BusHandler:Exception doing job")
 
     return job_handler
 
@@ -189,10 +189,10 @@ class ServiceCall(object):
 
     def __repr__(self):
         if self.data:
-            return "<ServiceCall {}.{}: {}>".format(
+            return u"<ServiceCall {}.{}: {}>".format(
                 self.domain, self.service, util.repr_helper(self.data))
         else:
-            return "<ServiceCall {}.{}>".format(self.domain, self.service)
+            return u"<ServiceCall {}.{}>".format(self.domain, self.service)
 
 
 # pylint: disable=too-few-public-methods
@@ -207,10 +207,10 @@ class Event(object):
 
     def __repr__(self):
         if self.data:
-            return "<Event {}: {}>".format(
+            return u"<Event {}: {}>".format(
                 self.event_type, util.repr_helper(self.data))
         else:
-            return "<Event {}>".format(self.event_type)
+            return u"<Event {}>".format(self.event_type)
 
 
 class Bus(object):
@@ -268,7 +268,7 @@ class Bus(object):
 
             except KeyError:  # if key domain or service does not exist
                 raise ServiceDoesNotExistError(
-                    "Service does not exist: {}/{}".format(domain, service))
+                    u"Service does not exist: {}/{}".format(domain, service))
 
     def register_service(self, domain, service, service_func):
         """ Register a service. """
@@ -290,7 +290,7 @@ class Bus(object):
 
             event = Event(event_type, event_data)
 
-            self.logger.info("Bus:Handling {}".format(event))
+            self.logger.info(u"Bus:Handling {}".format(event))
 
             if not listeners:
                 return
@@ -371,13 +371,13 @@ class Bus(object):
             log_error = self.logger.error
 
             log_error(
-                "Bus:All {} threads are busy and {} jobs pending".format(
+                u"Bus:All {} threads are busy and {} jobs pending".format(
                     self.thread_count, self.pool.queue.qsize()))
 
             jobs = self.pool.current_jobs
 
             for start, job in jobs:
-                log_error("Bus:Current job from {}: {}".format(
+                log_error(u"Bus:Current job from {}: {}".format(
                     util.datetime_to_str(start), job))
 
 
@@ -436,11 +436,11 @@ class State(object):
 
     def __repr__(self):
         if self.attributes:
-            return "<state {}:{} @ {}>".format(
+            return u"<state {}:{} @ {}>".format(
                 self.state, util.repr_helper(self.attributes),
                 util.datetime_to_str(self.last_changed))
         else:
-            return "<state {} @ {}>".format(
+            return u"<state {} @ {}>".format(
                 self.state, util.datetime_to_str(self.last_changed))
 
 
diff --git a/homeassistant/components/httpinterface/__init__.py b/homeassistant/components/httpinterface/__init__.py
index 9a38d9ce1d7..fe66c72d5bf 100644
--- a/homeassistant/components/httpinterface/__init__.py
+++ b/homeassistant/components/httpinterface/__init__.py
@@ -209,10 +209,10 @@ class RequestHandler(BaseHTTPRequestHandler):
         for t_method, t_path, t_handler in RequestHandler.PATHS:
 
             # we either do string-comparison or regular expression matching
+            # pylint: disable=maybe-no-member
             if isinstance(t_path, str):
                 path_match = url.path == t_path
             else:
-                # pylint: disable=maybe-no-member
                 path_match = t_path.match(url.path)
 
             if path_match and method == t_method:
@@ -335,13 +335,13 @@ class RequestHandler(BaseHTTPRequestHandler):
 
             state = self.server.statemachine.get_state(entity_id)
 
-            attributes = "<br>".join(
-                ["{}: {}".format(attr, state.attributes[attr])
+            attributes = u"<br>".join(
+                [u"{}: {}".format(attr, state.attributes[attr])
                  for attr in state.attributes])
 
-            write(("<tr>"
-                   "<td>{}</td><td>{}</td><td>{}</td><td>{}</td>"
-                   "</tr>").format(
+            write((u"<tr>"
+                   u"<td>{}</td><td>{}</td><td>{}</td><td>{}</td>"
+                   u"</tr>").format(
                   entity_id,
                   state.state,
                   attributes,
diff --git a/homeassistant/util.py b/homeassistant/util.py
index 3298eb60dd7..ed6159b5dc0 100644
--- a/homeassistant/util.py
+++ b/homeassistant/util.py
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ import re
 RE_SANITIZE_FILENAME = re.compile(r"(~|(\.\.)|/|\+)")
 RE_SLUGIFY = re.compile(r'[^A-Za-z0-9_]+')
 
-DATE_STR_FORMAT = "%H:%M:%S %d-%m-%Y"
+DATE_STR_FORMAT = u"%H:%M:%S %d-%m-%Y"
 
 
 def sanitize_filename(filename):
@@ -59,15 +59,15 @@ def filter_entity_ids(entity_ids, domain_filter=None, strip_domain=False):
 def repr_helper(inp):
     """ Helps creating a more readable string representation of objects. """
     if isinstance(inp, dict):
-        return ", ".join(
-            repr_helper(key)+"="+repr_helper(item) for key, item in inp.items()
+        return u", ".join(
+            repr_helper(key)+u"="+repr_helper(item) for key, item in inp.items()
             )
     elif isinstance(inp, list):
-        return '[' + ', '.join(inp) + ']'
+        return u'[' + u', '.join(inp) + u']'
     elif isinstance(inp, datetime.datetime):
         return datetime_to_str(inp)
     else:
-        return str(inp)
+        return unicode(inp)
 
 
 # Reason why I decided to roll my own ThreadPool instead of using