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Wellness Wednesday for April 26, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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So we've decided that we're going to vacate our lease. There are no penalties to be incurred because we already outstayed our original commitment and have been payining month to month since. Two leading options are a place that's much bigger and ostensibly nicer but in a worse neighborhood and a place that's either equivalent to what we have now or slightly worse than what we have now but in a nicer neighborhood and more expensive. I'm leaning towards the latter but better-half is arguing the former by appealing to my reflexive frugality and she might be winning.

My wife and I made a similar decision to move further away from my job to escape the yucky area we were in. Moved to a town half an hour away from work; nice community, a little pricier for a lower-quality abode, best decision ever.

Seriously, peace of mind is worth its weight in gold. The better half has some anxiety problems and just having a quiet, nice neighborhood has improved our QOL immensely. Cost is more than money, it's every little thing that you have to account for; I pay more in gas now, and time spent driving, but have to deal with fewer panic attacks and I'm not worried about broken glass on the sidewalk or other bullshit. Everything has a price, but mental clarity and peace of mind are often overlooked. This is my anecdotal experience, hope it helps.

The interesting thing to me is noticing how my own preferences have changed. 10 or even 5 years ago this would not have even been worth discussing. Moving from a duplex to a stand-alone 1 story house with garage for roughly the same monthly cost? Sign me up. But now I am not so certain.

The alternative is a condo in a complex which I see as a step down because we wont have a yard anymore, but it's also a nice complex in the nicer middle-class part of town with a playground and a community pool in easy walking distance.

Both options are within a 15-minute drive of our current place so in theory social upheaval should be minimal

Age changes your priorities.

I remember my twenties and early thirties. I thought nothing of staying in the worst inner-city suburb to live closer to work in a bigger place. I'd spend my holidays traveling to shithole countries and had some amazing (but in hindsight incredibly dangerous, risky and ultimately stupid) adventures.

Now I just want comfort and predictability. I hate dealing with the 'lowest common denominator' out in public and actively minimise my time engaging with new people that aren't pre-screened.

Broken glass, dodgy characters on the street; I just don't have time for that any more.

Since last night, there's been a meth-head in the park across the street from me, behaving erratically, dancing like a zombie, and occasionally wondering around in a stupor. The police have shown up a couple times, but there is apparently nothing illegal about being a deranged meth-head. Medics and fire department staff showed up as well, but she is apparently capable of continuing to shamble around looking insane.

While my neighborhood is ostensibly a "good neighborhood", this sort of thing definitely leads me to favor the sorts of neighborhoods that don't really tolerate meth-heads at all. Personally, I would be willing to pay a fair bit to not have people like this around. I suppose this is also a reminder that "good neighborhood" sometimes has as much to do with what the residents are willing to tolerate as it does with the quality of the residents themselves, at least in cities.

"Nothing illegal about being a deranged meth-head?" To my understanding the associated activity is in fact illegal. Is acting like a druggy not enough to infer the use of illegal drugs?

My impression is that the crime is possession rather than use. IANAL and live in a city that probably isn't enforcing possession all that tightly though, so grains of salt.

Big question: What makes it a "worse neighborhood"?

I'd personally pay a lot of money to avoid running into petty crime, petty theft, etc.

If its things like 'people are rednecks and a little trashy' by leaving beater cars on blocks, trailers on the street having crappy lawn decorations, no HOA etc. I'd say sign me up.

I'd personally pay a lot of money to avoid running into petty crime, petty theft, etc.

as would I and the thing that set off my "spidey sense" was the bars on neighbors' windows and the prevalence of padlocks and chains on fences and anything left in the driveway. She says I'm being paranoid but I'm not so sure.

Yeah I would in no way consider living in that neighborhood. Granted you seem like you could defend yourself pretty well if it came to it, but I feel like it's better to not be in that neighborhood to begin with.

It's funny how bars on windows are such a red flag in Western countries, that's the default in India, pretty much every house has them regardless of locale. And we don't have all that much burglary or petty crime to warrant it either.

It's funny how bars on windows are such a red flag in Western countries, that's the default in India

Do you guys also have the spikes on the top of walls (e.g. often made cheap with broken bottles like so)? In my (African) country it felt like every house had them.

And we don't have all that much burglary or petty crime to warrant it either.

I was thinking the same thing - and we're poorer than India. I can't recall it being a big problem.

Though the consequences that befall thieves explains it. The one time I saw someone accused of being a smash-and-grab thief everything almost immediately collapsed into mob justice (the woman of the house screaming about a strange man coming in certainly didn't help)

You really don't want to try to explain yourself trespassing in a strange neighborhood.

Yup, the wall spikes are pretty common, and if not broken glass, then iron spikes.

I agree that a willingness to engage in mob justice has some perks, especially when the police usually turn a blind eye as that means their work has been mostly done for them. It's quite similar in India, thieves get regularly lynched depending on the circumstances.

That does seem worrying, you can check crime maps for the area. The calls that police get to a location are usually publicly available.

Are there crime maps you can look at? A lot of counties (or big enough cities) will have GIS sites with all sorts of information. Plus I think there are apps, etc.

She says I'm being paranoid but I'm not so sure

Have you lived in rough neighborhoods? Has your SO? How tuned to real life is either of your guts? Bias can work both ways...

I've lived in both poor neighborhoods and rough neighborhoods. The difference between the two being largely what @cjet79 implied above in his question of what sort of "bad" are we talking about? Trailers on the street and trashy lawn decorations don't bother me, but bars on the windows and having to deal with junkies and petty crime do. The truly bad neighborhoods are both poor and rough.

In this specific case the place itself and the houses around it are pretty nice, but it's also going for what (to me at least) seems like a lot less than what the owners could theoretically ask for and thus the little voice in the back of my head is telling me that there has to be a catch. The county's 911 call heatmap doesn't show this neighborhood as being particularly good or bad, but that voice coupled with the afore mentioned visual indicators are what has me on edge.

In other cases I might ask what city you're in, as someone else might have some insight, but I understand if you don't want to reveal that here. Instead, some other things that might or might not be relevant-

-Is it a part of town with high population turnover? (ie. a college town near-ish the college hangouts/living areas, a military town where the off-post people live, a seasonal-work town, etc.) In those cases, sometimes residential private areas are inclined to higher-than-needed issues.

-Was there a crime way / concern in the last several years that made people fortify up? Rather than a current issue, there may have been a past issue, where the bars are legacy. Check photos from, say, 2015 to see if it's new, or old.

-Is there a Home Owner Association (HOA)? They have a dubious reputation, but some may be helpful for understanding certain neighborhoods.

-Have you asked the neighbors or any prior owners?

These may / may not help you, but would at least give a bit more information that might help.