If you live in a crappy neighborhood,

[agnes]

Growing up, we lived in a crappy neighborhood. Drive by shootings and all.

I'm pretty it was crappy when my parents bought the house. I think they decided on that neighborhood because it was cheaper and of the surrounding area not being bad.

[rubytue]

Define crappy? Dangerous? Or just not where everyone wants to be?

We live on the side of town near the coal plant, the sewage plant, and the general industrial area. The schools aren't as good here as if we had been down in some of the nicer areas of "town." But, we don't have kids and we have a private marina for about $100k less than the good schools.

We love it. Its safe,the neighbors are nice and down-to-earth. We are really happy here.

Except once a month or so when the wind blows the wrong direction.

[Deleted]

When I lived in a crappy neighborhood, I had no choice. That's all I could afford. It was $275/mo I think. My income varied between $500-700 per month.

[takeonyou]

I live in the less desirable area of my town. I live here because I like old houses and hate McMansions, I prefer a bigger lot, I don't want a HOA, and I like the fact that our neighborhood is small and not a throughway.

It is crappy because we live right by a creosote plant across the street, a concrete/asphalt recycling plant around the corner, and have a commercial warehouse 2 doors down. My neighborhood is blue collar (which works well for us since we both are as well) whereas the rest of town is white collar and in planned HOA neighborhoods.

[thatgirl2478]

Our old house is in a crappy area, but not dangerous, no exploding meth labs that I'm aware of. It used to be an industry area, but the factories closed and went elsewhere. Most people don't want to live there because it's got schools with pretty dismal test scores. However, if you LOOK at the population the schools serve, you can see why. 80% of the students come from primarily Spanish speaking homes (where English is either sparse or non existent) and these homes have a tendency to be lower income even with both parents working. Believe it or not, kids who don't speak English don't do well on standardized tests that are only allowed to be given in ENGLISH.

It was slowly revitalizing when we bought the house in 2003, but 2008 caused all development to come to a screeching halt. We bought because a) we could afford the kind of house we wanted (older, single family with a yard) and b) we liked the neighborhood feel. Everyone was just so friendly and really took pride in their homes. Of course now 75% of them are foreclosed on. The houses next to us and across the street sold for 20k and 25k respectively. We just got a CMA on our house to see if we should keep renting it out or sell it - and it came back at 70k.

[ellipses84]

We bought in a crappy neighborhood because it is our "starter" house with room to grow, we could afford it on one income even though we both work, we didn't have kids at the time and figured we'd move by the time they are in school, we wanted a big yard and no HOA.

There are nicer, newer neighborhoods within 5 minutes of ours, but they have small yards and when we move again it will likely be to an adjacent city for a better school district.

[sunshine608]

The entire county went downhill. I told DH this would happen but he didn't listen to me. We made a deal that it would be for five years. 5 years was 08 and it all went to shit.

I can't even began to describe the clusterfk that is our county.

We are planning on moving within the next 3 months. I finally talked h into an area I really liked and he agreed- my choice this time lol.

[pitterwoo]

our area is a little crappy- starter houses, not as good as the neighboring school district, could be better maintained, that sort of thing.

we live here because the taxes are 1/3 of the next town and we are only 4 houses from the line. the area is in a very convenient location too.

I would want to move before sending a kid to school here, but that's all hypothetical right now anyway.

[regina22]

Four years ago it was out-and-coming /transitional / gentrifying. Then the bubble burst, there's several huge condo projects half filled and empty store shops lining the main streets. This is on the fringe of areas that have drive by shooting and gang fights and drugged out people wandering into traffic. Or street is quiet, but they're trying to crack down on crime in the hot spots, which is good, but it's pushing the dealers closer to us, hitch s, you know, bad.

We put 20% down when we moved here, and if we sold now we'd barely break even. New businesses have opened up over the last eight months and things are finally starting to look promising, but it sucks not being able to walk your dog after dark.

Why did we move here? At the time, having a huge 3bd/2ba condo with a private roof top was more important than being in the best neighborhood (HCOL). Not sure we would have the same priorities now...

[lolzlala]

Not currently but I was in a crappy, crack dealing at the busstops, apartment for a year with a creepy stalkery nextdoor neighbor . Stayed because of price and couldn't afford to break my lease. Contributed to the decision for my then boyfriend to move in with me so we could double how much we could afford a month on an apartment. Spent the entire year at that place with my blinds closed and my gun carrying boyfriend staying over every night. Creepy neighbor would look in my windows, open doors if unlocked, and followed me while I was trying to walk my dogs late night commenting on my 'goods'. Not even the police could convince his dumbass to stop and the complex management wouldn't do anything to help at all.

I would have remained there another year for the convenience of city busses to campus every 1/2 hour and cheapness if not for the creeper. The drug dealers never bothered me and the other neighbors I talked to were pretty nice.

[mrsw101109]

Friends of mine bought a house in Atlantic City. If you have Never left the casino area and drove through the residential areas of AC, it's terrifying. It was less than $100k. They wanted to work in the casinos. Plus they Swear the gentrification is coming soon.

I only visit in the day time or I meet them at a casino.

[nomad100]

I rented in a crappy/bad neighborhood for 2 years. It was what I could afford. During that time we had 3 drive bys on our block, 1 right in front of our building, and at least 2 major drug busts on the next street over. But I loved my neighbors in the building and the corner shop where the owners were so friendly.

Our block was controlled by the Latin Kings but since I didn't cause trouble and always waved to them on my way home (they hung out on the porch of one of the houses I had to walk past on my way to the bus), I became known as the "business lady." At the beginning they would yell not nice stuff to/at me but over the course of a couple of months it turned into "how was work business lady?" or "Hey business lady, how are you doing today?" type stuff.

I ended up moving not because of the neighborhood but because my landlord was a douche.

[SusanBAnthony]

Sept 7, 2012 7:55:00 GMT -5 nomad100 said:

I rented in a crappy/bad neighborhood for 2 years. It was what I could afford. During that time we had 3 drive bys on our block, 1 right in front of our building, and at least 2 major drug busts on the next street over. But I loved my neighbors in the building and the corner shop where the owners were so friendly.

Our block was controlled by the Latin Kings but since I didn't cause trouble and always waved to them on my way home (they hung out on the porch of one of the houses I had to walk past on my way to the bus), I became known as the "business lady." At the beginning they would yell not nice stuff to/at me but over the course of a couple of months it turned into "how was work business lady?" or "Hey business lady, how are you doing today?" type stuff.

I ended up moving not because of the neighborhood but because my landlord was a douche.

You win for scariest description so far.

[mbcdefg]

Before buying our house we rented in a crappy neighborhood for two years, because the rent got us much more space than anywhere else we would've gotten in that town. We stayed in that particular town because MH worked in town, I worked in NYC and public transit was convenient, and because our families lived nearby.

It was "crappy" in the sense that the people were trashy (people were always yelling, kids playing in the streets past midnight on school nights, unkept houses - our former neighbor still has the tape on his windows from Hurricane Irene, blasting music at all hours), and there was always garbage and dog shit all over the streets and sidewalks. I'm pretty sure we lived next to a drug dealer for a while. If you left anything outside it'd quickly get stolen. One guy who rented a unit below ours (we lived in a multi-family home) used to have really seedy-looking people hanging out on our porch and leaving the front door wide open all night. There weren't any shootings in the immediate area but we weren't really far from the REALLY bad areas. The Daily Show once did a piece on how crappy the town was and some of it was filmed on our corner.

That whole town's going downhill, fast. I have lots of friends and family teaching in that school district and they all say that the school system is just getting worse and worse. We were super-glad to get out and we wish our parents would do the same.

[kadams767]

Well, if bad schools count as making the neighborhood crappy I live in a crappy neighborhood. Unfortunately, in my area, all city neighborhoods qualify, because the city public school system is terrible here.

We live here because we do not want to live in the suburbs. We love older homes and walkable neighborhoods. I actually like the urban density, I hate the idea of sprawling lots and never seeing my neighboors. Our neighborhood itself is mostly fine, there is some petty crime and some random bigger crimes here and there, but I think that is sort of expected in any urban neighborhood. I don't feel unsafe, but I take precaution and am always aware of my surroundings.

We don't have plans to leave, if we do end up having kids someday, we are hoping to win the public school lottery and be able to send them to one of the handful of decent public schools in the district. If not, we will be exploring private school.

[thatgirl2478]

I'm amending my earlier description to include the perception that outsiders held that my town had more crime, drugs and gangs than anywhere else. The town was the county seat just outside a MAJOR city (within an hour drive and every other town you drove through was a suburb of that major city). Are there crime, drugs and gangs in my old town? Yep. Did they cause problems for most of the people there? Nope.

Why did we leave? DH got a job 200 miles south which is significantly closer to my parents. Since having DD I wanted to be closer to her grandparents so she could see them more frequently and get to know them.

[rubytue]

Sept 7, 2012 8:05:57 GMT -5 SusanBAnthony said:

Sept 7, 2012 7:55:00 GMT -5 nomad100 said:

I rented in a crappy/bad neighborhood for 2 years. It was what I could afford. During that time we had 3 drive bys on our block, 1 right in front of our building, and at least 2 major drug busts on the next street over. But I loved my neighbors in the building and the corner shop where the owners were so friendly.

Our block was controlled by the Latin Kings but since I didn't cause trouble and always waved to them on my way home (they hung out on the porch of one of the houses I had to walk past on my way to the bus), I became known as the "business lady." At the beginning they would yell not nice stuff to/at me but over the course of a couple of months it turned into "how was work business lady?" or "Hey business lady, how are you doing today?" type stuff.

I ended up moving not because of the neighborhood but because my landlord was a douche.

You win for scariest description so far.

But I had actual crap smell! Lol

Teasing. My neighborhood is fine. Just not to MM standards (when I was looking, everyone kept saying Severna Park, Arnold, Annapolis - we chose Glen Burnie/Pasadena instead).

[nomad100]

SusanB, it wasn't THAT bad. Plus now I have crazy "I lived in the 'hood" stories to tell people now that I live in a totally suburban city in another state.

As weird as I know it sounds, once the LKs "accepted me" into their hood, even though I was a white girl, I felt safer. My car was never broken into because they knew it was my car. My boyfriend's soft-top jeep was never broken into because they knew he was with me. They never hassled my friends when they were walking with me to the bus, again because they were with me and I "belonged."

At the same time, I did try to keep my late night walks to a minimum because of the conflicts with rival gangs that resulted in the drive bys.

[cjeanette]

I have always wondered this in general. I have known people who wanted a certain house and were willing to live in a crappy area. Or my SIL who bought the home that has been in H's family for 100 years. At least that are is "up and coming" again.

[bella427]

Our friends seem to think we live in a crappy neighborhood, but after reading some of these descriptions I'm not sure it counts! Our neighborhood schools are bad and last night the police helicoptor was circling looking for someone, but we chose our house because it was what we could afford that still had a good commute. We've been there 7 years and now that our oldest is going to kinder next year, we'll probably be moving, after attempting to transfer schools.

[tacokick]

We live in Baltimore City which a lot of people think is a bad place to live. Our neighborhood has huge yards, single family houses and a burgeoning main street. We like it a lot. We don't have kids or want them so schools are not an issue.

Eta: we want our city to work and it was important to us to live here.

[lurkergirl123]

I recently moved from a "bad" neighborhood.

We were there because our house was affordable and everyone was talking about how that area was turning around and lots of real estate was being sold there, etc. The house next door went into foreclosure about 2 years after we moved in. It never had a big turn around, obviously.

The schools were good and there were tons of parks. Plus our house was really cute. Small but nice.

We moved to another state in March. Much "fancier" neighborhood.

[picklepie09]

Wow.. reading these it makes me feel like I live in the friggen Bev Hills.
My whole town is really nice. There is one area that is less than desirable but it sounds like it blows everyone elses crappy area away. No gang shootings, good school system, just lower income.

[liveintheville]

I love our neighborhood, but we know many people that move out because of the schools. That's really the only downside.

[pamela]

We live right across the street from a really crappy neighborhood and parts of ours are only slightly better. We're there because it's close to work, the house itself is awesome and we could afford it easily. Elementary school, although not the best in the parish, is better than schools in the nearby parishes.

Yes, we plan on moving within probably 5 years.

[crazycakes]

We live in a weird area. Our street is kind of crappy but we are only blocks away from a really nice area. We wanted to be in the nice area, but rent on our street (quite literally on "the other side of the tracks") was several hundred dollars a month cheaper for a nicer house with a yard. We live across the street from a total slum apartment, and I'm pretty sure our neighbors deal drugs. Honestly, I don't feel unsafe here, though.

I feel like all of Atlanta is like this - one street is really nice, two streets down is the ghetto. It's a strange city.

Our house is cute, I love our yard, we are within walking distance of our favorite bars/restaurants and public transit (the train, not the bus). So for all of that it's worth looking at a slum every day.

[mrssavy42112]

Sept 7, 2012 7:55:00 GMT -5 nomad100 said:

I rented in a crappy/bad neighborhood for 2 years. It was what I could afford. During that time we had 3 drive bys on our block, 1 right in front of our building, and at least 2 major drug busts on the next street over. But I loved my neighbors in the building and the corner shop where the owners were so friendly.

Our block was controlled by the Latin Kings but since I didn't cause trouble and always waved to them on my way home (they hung out on the porch of one of the houses I had to walk past on my way to the bus), I became known as the "business lady." At the beginning they would yell not nice stuff to/at me but over the course of a couple of months it turned into "how was work business lady?" or "Hey business lady, how are you doing today?" type stuff.

I ended up moving not because of the neighborhood but because my landlord was a douche.

Yeah, they’re no joke. My friend lived in a neighborhood controlled by them & when I parked my car across the street from her building, there was no one on the street. By the time I walked down the block, I could swear that I saw like 5 different guys come out of the woodworks, just eyeing me & my car. Basically, trying to see who I was. No one said anything. My friend worked with one & even gave her the ‘safe word’ in case you were ever accosted. As soon as they saw her come out to greet me, they all melted away. When I came back out, no one bothered me. Yeah, I never visited her again!

[chia]

My neighborhood is interesting. The neighbors are about 1/2 working professionals, with total HHI around $200-275K (guess) - the other 1/2 tend to be lower income Central American immigrants. The higher HHI families include a lot of diversity. Like, of the 7 houses immediately surrounding ours, 6 of the families are multiracial/multiethnic.

The most "exciting" thing that's happened in my neighborhood while I've lived here was the arrest of the big drug dealer that had $200 mil in cash hidden in the walls of his house in Mexico. He was hiding out in a house just a few blocks from us.

The local elementary school gets very mixed reviews. There was some improvement, but it seems to have backslid.

We moved here because we could afford our house, and we're within walking distance (15-20min walk) to public transportation.

[Deleted]

My first house was probably in a "crappy" neighborhood...not far from downtown Las Vegas. We moved there because it was central, affordable, older (not all stucco boxes that looked the same), had mature landscaping & nice lots & because I absolutely fell in love with a house there. While I was there I smelled a dead body for months not knowing that was what I was smelling!! Apparently my neighbor a few doors down claims a guy tried to rape her & she strangled him & buried him in her backyard. Her house was getting foreclosed on & she asked her roommate to help her "move the body"--he looked at where she said she buried it (between a block wall fence & a shed) & he saw a hand sticking out. Gag-gag...Anyway he went across the street & told the neighbor who was a cop. And the shit hit the fan from there. It was featured on Americas Most Wanted because they couldn't identify the guy & she wasn't talking. My house also got broken into there, car & backyard had stuff taken out of repeatedly. But the actual residents/neighbors were nice & normal--College Professors, Artists, Lawyers, Architects, etc. We left because the housing price was way, way up from where we bought & I knew I wanted out of Vegas eventually & why not leave when you can make a couple hundred grand. So that's what we did.

House 2 was nice neighborhood in a generic sense but I was close to a very busy commercial street with lots of ummmm interesting characters. We lived there because it was the best/biggest thing we could afford in the central part of the city. It also was walkable to tons of stuff & had a beautiful park/museum/the zoo a block a way. There was a shooting of a cop there this summer.

House 3 I think is the least crappy but we are even more urban so we definitely have non-stop sketchy people walking by or in our alley. Houses/cars get broken into, stuff gets graffittied, etc. The public elementary is crap--I would not send my kid there & neither do 70% of my neighbors with kids. But the neighborhood is gorgeous (homes, parks, tree lined streets), the people are interesting & diverse, you can walk to million things & downtown is 5min away.

[Deleted]

I live in the nicest neighborhood of a " dangerous" city. It's awesome. Crime is like 0 neighbors are awesome, mortgage is cheap, taxes are cheap, good restaurants down the street. Everyone who hears where I live ( & has seen movies like " The Fighter" ) wants to know if I get shot all the time. Lol! We are moving in a year, because we want a bigger place, & schools here suck. We might buy in our current neighborhood & do Catholic schools though.