http://www.krem.com/news/Woman-pistol-whipped-in-70268762.html
Did I tell you we got out of that place because we were living across the landing and directly above people who I doubt would have passed a background check—as evidenced by the armed police takedown that flattened our neighbor on the front lawn? We felt a real urgency to move. This isn’t the first time this formerly nice apartment complex has been in the news. When we moved in, they did background checks, meticulously, and by the time we moved out the new management didn’t care who or how many might be in an apartment. They came and they went, they parked in wrong spaces, they behaved like animals once they’d gotten liquored up, which was nightly, and this is what it’s come to.
Glad we moved when we did. I’ve lived in a neighborhood where people standing on the front lawn firing guns was not uncommon—and I’m not fond of having to duck behind the brickwork.
I am glad you moved when you did too. You seem to be enjoying your snug little house and pond and all.
My neighbors on both sides have been broken into in the 11 years I’ve lived in my house, but out large dogs have kept everyone away from our yard. Except the 7 year old girl I found playing hide-and-seek on our porch late one evening. Her sisters were hiding in the front yard of the house next door.
Scary stuff! So glad you made the move and so sad it’s deteriorated like it did. I remember when you and Jane moved into that place — it sounded so good and had great views [assuming I’m remembering right]. But it can happen anywhere — I remember a murder in the parking lot of my old apartment complext in Phoenix not long after I moved in [and it was a security gated place], or the time someone showed up at a neighbor’s door at about 2 am ranting, raving and waving around a gun — all about 3 feet away from my bedroom window. Made me really, really glad I had the pier cabinet of my headboard assembly covering and blocking that window!
And really, really glad we now live in the mountains where it’s so much nicer and quieter!
I’ve been shot ‘at’ twice in my life, one an accident and my fault, with a flight of arrows, of all things, one with a shotgun aimed to miss, (either that or the crazy old guy was a sincerely bad shot)—and I can sincerely say I’d prefer to avoid a third go. Glad to be out of there.
I recently had to explain to several emergency room doctors just how I got stuck in the leg by an arrow…two weeks in a cast and a few stitches later and I have a lovely scar and a story to last me the rest of my life, LOL.
That sounds like a good one. 😆 Me, I didn’t check the time before taking the shortcut past the archery range. You would not believe how a fairly substantial person can take cover behind saplings—a grove of which was the only cover to be had back there—and it was the beginning archery class, so MOST of their shots were going wild of the haybale backdrop. There must’ve been thirty arrows pffft-ing past, and I got out of there while they were on the reload.
I’m glad you had the wits to move when you did. Do you find you have a sort of gut instinct for self preservation that tells you when to get out of a place? Mine has saved me from some potentially scary situations in my (much) younger days. 😀 There is a certain advantage to being know as ‘the weirdos who live in the woods’, but terrible things happen even here in a very low crime and largely rural area.
Fortunately we were financially and psychologically able to move—I grew up in the constant thought of moving: my dad worked for the government (Social Security)—and we had to live wherever Uncle Sam decided they needed him, so every house we bought was with the thought of fixing it up and what would add to the resale. We moved—a lot. There’s a fable about a frog in a pot of boiling water: if the heat comes up gradually, the fable runs, the frog tolerates it to the point of no return. Well, I’m inclined to judge a small temperature rise as an alarm signal.
Soap operas are lost on me: I say to myself—heck, if it’s that bad, lady, pack the bags and head for Tahiti. Most of the conflicts are because the individuals cling together like rats in a flood.
And I added ‘psychologically’ to financially as probably the more important component. I was in that neighborhood with the Saturday morning gunfire because I had bought that house (my first) in a government lottery of repo’d properties, and I was doggedly determined to fix it up and sell it. I did. I helped fight a development that would have lowered property values. I helped organize a neighborhood watch that improved the neighborhood—and our gun-toting babe across the street back went to prison, so that helped, too. Doubled my money (got a few gray hairs) and moved. They hadn’t invented house-flipping yet, but that was what I did.
But after that, it was the boiling water theory: if I thought I should move, I did. Jane, fortunately, is of the same mindset. We love the house where we are. Yep, there could be problems down the road (literally), but the tendency is to fix up houses in this area, and that’s a very good sign. We pay attention to potential problems, we report situations if they look suspicious, and we have, thank goodness, good neighbors.
Last January, I moved back to Portland (downtown, no less) from a place way, way out in the middle of nowhere in southern Oregon. Amusingly, I heard more gunshots in the latter location than the former, although I’m sure they were mostly hunters. I don’t fool myself that my “secure building” here is some sort of inviolable magic Warding, but I feel reasonably safe, at least from the residents.
The fact that the place is kinda spendy probably helps. Not so great for my bottom line, but the neighbors are at worst only moderately sketchy.
‘moderately sketchy.’ I love it.
This is, seriously, home security season. Because people want their Christmas lights to turn on at dusk, Lowes etc. have photosensitive switches to do so automatically. The best selection is available now.
Intermatic makes some rated at 1000 watts, which seems to handle the starting of a compact fluorescent light. (Low power light switches or dimmers will fry from the starting surge.) Get one with a mechanical mode switch! The electronic ones I got for Christmas lights turn off after a power failure.
I have an open plan home, at least on the street side, so I use a bright 28 watt CFL to light the whole inside. It’s about a kilowatt a month. Initially, I had it set to run just in the evening, but then I read that most burglaries and home invasions happen between two and five AM, so now I just run it all night.
I figure you’re not so much trying to simulate your life as trying to make your home the least attractive to a thief. If you simulate the dead of night when you have nothing but night lights on, you don’t scare the thief. And, with the house lit you don’t need night lights to get to the kitchen for a midnight snack.
We always have the basement lit because of the algae-growing tank down there, and those lights show. But we don’t have on the upstairs, though we do have 2 spook lights outside. Probably we should look at that, but so far so good. I do study the crime maps periodically, and thus far it’s been elsewhere than here.
I once spent 2 horrifying years in a large inner city and
learned to sleep despite the gunfire,the sirens and the
‘whup,whup and blinding light of the police helicopter. It was a financial imperative. I was ever so glad to get
back to a remote mountain top where I looked more kindly
upon the occasional bear or mountain lion.
I’m a bit distressed that I will soon have to move into
Missoula,but hey,it can’t be that bad,hummmm.
So glad you gals have sensitive feelers for staying out of bad situations!
Missoula’s kind of a laid-back town: the new Irish pub is great, and the traffic’s not bad. I don’t think I’ve seen a police incident in the times I’ve stayed at Ruby’s.
I’ve lived in bad areas most of my life and have witnessed many drive by shootings and finally last month I moved to a nice big house in the best area in town. The neighborhood even smells better! I think the worst thing about living in such places is not being able to be outside at all hours of the night without dealing with inebriated pedestrians. Oh and not having your house shot at is a plus too. So keep your head down when your in northern California. j/k.
Congrats! It’s so nice not to have to duck or have eyes in the back of your head!
I am consoling myself with the idea of power wheels and a
library. Plus my care giver will be next door,easier for
both of us. I love that Missoula has handicap buses and I
will be loose on the town!! Look Out…
Heh. There are places to go and things to do in Missoula, honest. A library. Easy access to cable. Probably there are events and plays. Nice little town with pretty mountains looming around it.
My Girlfriend and I recently moved into a nice large house here in Oklahoma…only down side is that we are 1 block from the football field/marching band practice route…every morning I get to watch the marching band go down the street lol. I’m very glad that football season is over also…we couldn’t go to sleep till about 12 am on friday nights lol.