Is Life in Calif That Bad?

[sherbs]

I was watching one of Harley's videos and he was leaving his home for a event. His home and vehicle appeared to me like Fort Knox and then after he was on the road a bit he had to wait for a gate to open and then go thru it. I have heard of gated communities but even the rock and movie stars summer homes in my area are not gated. what's up with a kind of regular guy having to live like that? Is it common in the Sacramento area or California in general? I worked for 28 years in a gated community, it was called Adirondack Correctional, why would you live like that if your are not a convict in a prison?

[dezfan]

Lived in the PRK(People’s Republic of Kommiefornia) for 35 years.

It was bad when I got out, it’s much much worse now.

It’s truly a #shithole. 😕

[Gula]

You want to keep the riff raff out, put a fence around your shit! You want to keep the riff raff in put a fence around them. Its usually the nicer communities, like mine that get their house, car broken into. We live next to a gated community, but im unsure how crime is over there. They have a guard, but pay $400 in HOA fees. We've had one of our cars broken into some years back. But get this, no alarm went off, no broken glass, no prybar marks. Didnt take cash, laptops, movie tickets or dolce gabana glasses. They took garage openers only! 5 cars on my street got gotten, all new cars. Few years later we've had our catalytic converter stolen from our sequoia. Takes 2 minutes to steal one side and the lowlife is $30-300 fatter in his pocket. Platinum is what toyota decided would be one of the best catalytic converter elements.

[svt923]

Not just a CA thing, we have gated apartment complexes all over the place down here and Raleigh is one of the lowest crime metro areas in the country. People seem to like that extra piece of mind that comes from the gate keeping 90% of the random cars driving through their neighborhood.

[struhall]

California is bad enough that people are leaving and coming here to Texas. Then trying to turn us into California.

[skinnyj]

Originally Posted by sherbs

I was watching one of Harley's videos and he was leaving his home for a event. His home and vehicle appeared to me like Fort Knox and then after he was on the road a bit he had to wait for a gate to open and then go thru it. I have heard of gated communities but even the rock and movie stars summer homes in my area are not gated. what's up with a kind of regular guy having to live like that? Is it common in the Sacramento area or California in general? I worked for 28 years in a gated community, it was called Adirondack Correctional, why would you live like that if your are not a convict in a prison?

Comparing very sparsely populated way-northern NY to suburbs surrounding a major city is an apples to oranges comparison. I live in Manchester NH. I live in one the good sections, but that doesn't stop me from locking my car and house. If I lived in some place like Berlin or Colebrook, I would probably approach things differently. Same if I took over the house my family has in Rensselaer Falls. Why do I live in Manchester? Well, we got a nice house at a good price, my work is only 5 minutes away and my wife's 10 minutes and I don't have to drive and hour each way for toilet paper.

However, I do laugh at the whole gated community thing. It's a false sense of security. Sure, it keeps the petty thieves out, but, if someone wants to get in, they are getting in.

[jessedacri]

What on earth is this topic? I live in the heart of Los Angeles and have for the past decade and it's totally fine, no better or worse than any other big city. Normal house in the silver lake/elysian valley area. No bars on the windows, no gates or security guards. Normal neighborhood with nice families surrounding me. I don't even pay that much to rent, and I've got a backyard with lemon, lime, grapefruit, guava, fig, and persimmon trees - and most importantly a garage to wrench on the RCs. 45 minutes southwest gets me to Corona Del Mar, 45 minutes north gets me to Vasquez Rocks, some of the most incredible crawling spots in the country. Every place has rough spots, and every place has gated communities. I'm happy I live in a culturally diverse spot with great food and experiences to be had, and of course everyone's mileage may vary.

California is great. Politics can warp the mind.

[Shinchu]

i used to live in Temecula, CA. its about an hour north of san diego, and 45 min east of orange county. i lived in a gated communist- i mean community with an HOA fee of $120 so they could tell us our fences were painted the wrong color - after telling us to paint them that color.
after some crap that's a long story went down with my daughter in the Temecula school district, we moved to san diego in base housing until i could find a home to buy down here in SD where i was closer to work and my daughter could go to private school down here as well.

anyway about the gates... yeah Temecula was a decently low crime area. but keeping out random people from driving around "casing the joint" was nice. until my wife hit my accord with the gate one day. that sucked. anyway... gates do sorta work. YMMV though.


now im in san diego in a decent area JUST outside a not-so-decent area. i live in rancho san diego, just outside (and technically still in my mailing address) El Cajon.
its a relatively low crime area. but the news just broke this morning of a shooting at the rancho Edwards cinema parking lot last night.

teenagers arguing then shots fired from a grey/silver sedan. nobody injured thank god but... i mean a THEATER??! we already have very little law enforcement patrolling our area because we are "un-incorperated" san diego county. so el cajon police technically have no jurisdiction there. so we have SD sheriff and highway patrol.
the drivers in my area have NO regard for human life. its a certain ethnic group that i wont say but its not what you think. if you know anything about el cajon and its ethnic make-up you can figure it out. these people think they are aboive the law because their family is royalty "in the old country" back home. not here, bub. you want the royal treatment take your ass back home.
anyway i can only imagine the shooter was "one of those".

worst part about CA: i cant even carry to defend myself and family if i need to.

im about sick of this damn state. cant carry but OH BAN THE EVIL STRAWS!!!!!!!!

[skinnyj]

Originally Posted by jessedacri

What on earth is this topic? I live in the heart of Los Angeles and have for the past decade and it's totally fine, no better or worse than any other big city. Normal house in the silver lake/elysian valley area. No bars on the windows, no gates or security guards. Normal neighborhood with nice families surrounding me. I don't even pay that much to rent, and I've got a backyard with lemon, lime, grapefruit, guava, fig, and persimmon trees - and most importantly a garage to wrench on the RCs. 45 minutes southwest gets me to Corona Del Mar, 45 minutes north gets me to Vasquez Rocks, some of the most incredible crawling spots in the country. Every place has rough spots, and every place has gated communities. I'm happy I live in a culturally diverse spot with great food and experiences to be had, and of course everyone's mileage may vary.

California is great. Politics can warp the mind.

During my bar days, I used to drink mostly in Lowell, MA. Lowell had a bad rep as far as cities go. I was in and out of there Friday and Saturday nights/mornings for over 10 years and not one single issue. Aside from a couple of tough areas, Lowell is pretty much a college town. In fact, you are more likely to have a bad encounter with some drunk/roided college kid than with the local Cambodian population.

[JatoTheRipper]

Originally Posted by Gula

You want to keep the riff raff out, put a fence around your shit! You want to keep the riff raff in put a fence around them. Its usually the nicer communities, like mine that get their house, car broken into. We live next to a gated community, but im unsure how crime is over there. They have a guard, but pay $400 in HOA fees. We've had one of our cars broken into some years back. But get this, no alarm went off, no broken glass, no prybar marks. Didnt take cash, laptops, movie tickets or dolce gabana glasses. They took garage openers only! 5 cars on my street got gotten, all new cars. Few years later we've had our catalytic converter stolen from our sequoia. Takes 2 minutes to steal one side and the lowlife is $30-300 fatter in his pocket. Platinum is what toyota decided would be one of the best catalytic converter elements.

You can't put fences around anything these days. Fences are racist, remember?

HOA's are a disgusting and evil scam. And **** housing developments. They are ruining America.

[soze]

Originally Posted by Shinchu

i used to live in Temecula, CA. its about an hour north of san diego, and 45 min east of orange county. i lived in a gated communist- i mean community with an HOA fee of $120 so they could tell us our fences were painted the wrong color - after telling us to paint them that color.
after some crap that's a long story went down with my daughter in the Temecula school district, we moved to san diego in base housing until i could find a home to buy down here in SD where i was closer to work and my daughter could go to private school down here as well.

anyway about the gates... yeah Temecula was a decently low crime area. but keeping out random people from driving around "casing the joint" was nice. until my wife hit my accord with the gate one day. that sucked. anyway... gates do sorta work. YMMV though.


now im in san diego in a decent area JUST outside a not-so-decent area. i live in rancho san diego, just outside (and technically still in my mailing address) El Cajon.
its a relatively low crime area. but the news just broke this morning of a shooting at the rancho Edwards cinema parking lot last night.

teenagers arguing then shots fired from a grey/silver sedan. nobody injured thank god but... i mean a THEATER??! we already have very little law enforcement patrolling our area because we are "un-incorperated" san diego county. so el cajon police technically have no jurisdiction there. so we have SD sheriff and highway patrol.
the drivers in my area have NO regard for human life. its a certain ethnic group that i wont say but its not what you think. if you know anything about el cajon and its ethnic make-up you can figure it out. these people think they are aboive the law because their family is royalty "in the old country" back home. not here, bub. you want the royal treatment take your ass back home.
anyway i can only imagine the shooter was "one of those".

worst part about CA: i cant even carry to defend myself and family if i need to.

im about sick of this damn state. cant carry but OH BAN THE EVIL STRAWS!!!!!!!!

LOL, I think I know what you're talking about. I think we have some of the same here.

There's a group (usually associated with females) that can't drive (at least the ones that weren't born here) because their traffic control from where they're from wasn't as strict and properly policed, or they've just never had to drive before... plus congestion.

Then there's the group I think you're talking about that just doesn't give a f*ck. Flaunting "wealth"... see stop sign in a kid-friendly neighborhood and ignore... blast through.

[Ragenwraith]

My buddy lives in Redding,CA in Jefferson County. This is in the northern part of the state. He says all of the rules that the state government come up with are based on what happens in L.A. Gas tax just went up .06 cent this week so prices are $4.65 give or take a gallon, this in the state where gasoline in manufactured for the rest of us. Prices of homes that would be in the $70,000 dollar range in other states depending on the town are well over $300,000. Also heard they my be closing Pismo beach dune area to motorized vehicles. Traffic is horrendous. Many homeless people are everywhere let alone the illegals that are living in the "sanctuary cities". Granted this is a beautiful state with gorgeous National Parks and places to visit. This said the middle class folks are having a tough go of it, the rich are getting richer. The place that everyone wanted to move to back in the day is now the place where they want to sell out and move to a different state. So sad.

[Thorsteenster]

Beets me, I've been in Cali twice, once in a SF suburb, and the other in SoCal. Both were enjoyable and helped me to determine that if I ever leave VA, Cali is the place I'd like to be.

[soze]

Originally Posted by Thorsteenster

Beets me, I've been in Cali twice, once in a SF suburb, and the other in SoCal. Both were enjoyable and helped me to determine that if I ever leave VA, Cali is the place I'd like to be.

I think it just comes down to if you're used to living in a more dense population, or less dense population.

I've been in both. While I prefer the suburbs of Chicago, I definitely love the weather I have here.

The suburbia I'm in is definitely more "dense" in population than a suburb of Chicago.

Cali is such a big state and so diverse in people and types of neighborhoods, it's hard to make a blanket statement about it as a whole.

[sherbs]

All of this is very interesting but I really was wondering is if gated communities are common now for more than the famous in California?

[soze]

Originally Posted by sherbs

All of this is very interesting but I really was wondering is if gated communities are common now for more than the famous in California?

Depends. Some people like gated communities because it feels like more "exclusivity". Some of these gated communities also have their own amenities & facilities that they'd like to keep outsiders from using.

There's a mix. I live in a planned community with amenities & facilities, but we're not gated. These facilities require key cards with our photos on it, but they used to be RFID key fobs. Scrupulous people (owners or renters) would sell these fobs on Craigslist or some other means, and we'd get a bunch of non-residents coming to use our facilities and attending our community events and celebrations, when you completely knew they didn't belong. (It got so bad that we now have a card with Photo IDs now).

This is where a gate would've helped as a second barrier to entry to use our facilities & amenities, or attend our community events & celebrations.

[Thorsteenster]

Originally Posted by soze

I think it just comes down to if you're used to living in a more dense population, or less dense population.

I've been in both. While I prefer the suburbs of Chicago, I definitely love the weather I have here.

The suburbia I'm in is definitely more "dense" in population than a suburb of Chicago.

Cali is such a big state and so diverse in people and types of neighborhoods, it's hard to make a blanket statement about it as a whole.

Yeah, for me the biggest attraction was the climate. When I was in the San Fran area I was there for a week to work at my then job's CA office in the summer. I was walking back and forth to the office from my hotel comfortably, about 20 minutes each way. Here in the DC area if I step outside in the summer, bam, I'm breaking a sweat. And soCal was funny, people all bundled up in the winter, and I'm like WTF in shorts and a tee.
And Vans, I swear Orange must issue residents Vans, I've never seen so many folk wearing em!
But yeah, SoCal may have the DC area beet for traffic...

[sherbs]

So how does a residents friend or UPS or Fed Ex get in a gated community? Is there a Gate Keeper?

[soze]

Originally Posted by sherbs

So how does a residents friend or UPS or Fed Ex get in a gated community? Is there a Gate Keeper?

Some gated communities have a guy manning the gate. Others give transponders to courier services, etc.

For things like pizza delivery, plumbers, etc. They have to dial at the gate and be buzzed in.

[JatoTheRipper]

Originally Posted by soze

I think it just comes down to if you're used to living in a more dense population, or less dense population.

I've been in both. While I prefer the suburbs of Chicago, I definitely love the weather I have here.

The suburbia I'm in is definitely more "dense" in population than a suburb of Chicago.

Cali is such a big state and so diverse in people and types of neighborhoods, it's hard to make a blanket statement about it as a whole.

I think the politicians, more than the people, are trying to ruin California.

So you reside in both Chicago and California?