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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.

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.

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.