Help! Lancaster/Palmdale/Tehachapi/Bakersfield? (Los Angeles, Delano: housing, rent, income)

[Roaddog]

I think Tehachapi is a pretty cool place but there is a lot more to do in bakersfield

[midnightbirdgirl]

We had an offer for a transfer, to Bakersfield, we live in Palmdale west side now. Had we taken it, we would have lived in Tehachapi.
Tehachapi, hands down for us!
MBG

[kukla1]

We are looking to get OUT of Bakersfield in a big way! I grew up here and it is in no way the nice town that I once knew. I had heard that Tehachapi is slowly becoming a mini-gang-land and this is what stops me from persuing such a move. Any other input?

[jdavid93225]

Originally Posted by kukla1

I had heard that Tehachapi is slowly becoming a mini-gang-land and this is what stops me from persuing such a move. Any other input?

I don't live in Tehachapi, so I can't say for certain if there is any truth to this, but I do live in Kern County, as I have for many years, and I've heard nothing of the sort. I have heard about the gang influence moving into Bakersfield and other Kern County communities, so if it were a serious issue in Tehachapi, I can't imagine that I would have heard nothing of it. I do have a few friends in and around Tehachapi, and have never heard any mention of gangs there. I imagine that there probably is a small amount of gang activity there, though, due to its proximity between Bakersfield and the Antelope Valley, where there is a considerable amount of gang activity.

If I were to choose where to live in the areas mentioned at the beginning of this thread, I think I would choose Tehachapi, or possibly Keene or Hart Flat. The latter two areas are very small, but are closer to Bakersfield and the amenities it offers. My next choice would be Bakersfield, though I'm not sure what area of town I would choose. As mentioned above, most of the Southwest and Northwest, part of the Northeast, and part of the Central area are nice areas with good communities. There is a lot to do in the Bakersfield area, and the town is still pretty friendly, though not as much as it was twenty years ago.

[joeyla91601]

hello
sorry to hear about you problems. have you thought of moving to the westside or rancho vista in palmdale

Originally Posted by Tamara_T

Hey all!

My husband and I currently own a home in Lancaster, CA (east side) We HATE it! We just had a HUGE slew of robberies/vandalism over here and want to sell and get out.. pronto!

We are considering Bakersfield or Tehachapi... I would LOVE opinions on schools... etc in those areas. I have been to Tehachapi once to visit one of my husbands co workers. I didn't care for the emptyness up there.. didn't seem like much to do.. but then again. I didn't see any "trash" hanging around the stores, neighborhoods, etc.

A little about us..

My Husband works for the CA dept. of corrections and I own my own photography business Lancaster California Children's Professional Portrait Photographer - Maternity - Newborn - Family - Child - Babies - Black and White - Tehachapi - Palmdale

We are 28 and 24.. have two young children ages 18 months and 4.

Thanks a bunch!!!

[canibeyou]

Well... I was just going to observe this thread, but the more I read about Tehachapi, the harder I was laughing, so I thought I'd put in my 2 pennies.

My husband and I made a decision, four years ago, continue renting in the San Fernando Valley (where I was born and raised) or move to a place where we could afford to buy a home. We made the decision to buy and we moved to Tehachapi. Fast forward 4 years and we own a large home on property that we owe next to nothing on (hence the ability for me to not have to work; live on one income), we have fantastic neighbors, literally no traffic anywhere up here, the air is clean, the sky so blue it sometimes takes your breath away and at night, the stars are so bright and gorgeous (no street lights where we live) you can actually see satellites flying in the sky, not to mention how gorgeous the Milky Way is.

No crime (no sirens or helicopters looking for the bad guys; only time you hear a helicopter is if a fire is being fought)... well, I should say, no gangs (contratry to what someone posted here).. too many CHP, CO's and Sheriff's live up here and gangs tend to like to blend in and not stick out like a sore thumb.. plus they seem to like areas where the cops are already preoccupied and they're anything but preoccupied here, so they're quick to respond to crime, should there be a call for them to answer. Meth... yes, there are people up here that do meth. Alot of people? Nope. Some? Yep. But show me a city in America that doesn't have someone doing meth.

There are a few private schools up here, but if you chose the public schools, they're not over crowded like in big cities and therefore there's more time for teacher/ student interaction. This is second-hand info. as we have no kids but some of our friends do. There's always the option of home schooling. But our friends that have kids have let us know what a great relief it is to live in a place where they don't worry about anything happening to their kids when they're outside playing. I've never experienced any kids up here (ages 5-20; 20 is still a kid, right! LOL) wandering around, looking to get into mischief. To the contrary. Before we moved up here, we were eating at the McDonalds. We watched a young girl, probably 9, hop out of her Mom's car and make a run for the door.. she ran right around an elderly lady walking towards the same door. To our shock and suprise, the young girl got to the door and, instead of running inside, she opened the door and held it open for the elderly lady and then went inside behind her. And, to this day, the kids we see are just as respectful.

People up in each others business???? Wow... haven't experienced that at all up here. We know our neighbors and watch out for each others property, but if you're not my immediate neighbor, I probably just know your name and nothing more. Then again, I don't gossip and no one I know does either. that might be the difference. I love the fact that we're a small enough town that, when you go, say, grocery shopping, the cashier recognizes you from the previous times you were in and he/she genuinely wants to know how you're doing when she asks. Same with other establishments. Some are small enough that they'll actually say "Hi ___________ (<--- insert your name here)" when you walk in. To me, that's not being up in anyone's business. To me, that's a sign of someone actually careing and being genuinely nice. Plus, it's nice, when you're driving thru a neighborhood, the residents here actually wave "Hi" to you.

Traffic???? What traffic??? If there are 5 cars within site, on the road at the same time, we call that "rush hour". And we're a small enough town that there's no one willing to risk the embarrasment of driving with road rage/ like a jerk 'cuz chances are, if they do drive like a jerk, they're going to the same destination as the person they just cut-off.. and that's just down right embarrassing. So, no road ragers up here.

And yes, we are a small town, with not much to do, but we are located close enough to larger cities that we can take advantage of everything they have to offer and, when we're done, we come home to our quiet little town, sit on the porch and watch the sunset on another perfect day.

Tehachapi isn't for everyone. I guess, when contemplating a move, you have to ask yourself what really matters. On one hand, you have Tehachapi; a safe, quiet community where it's safe to raise your kids. Or, say a big town like Bakersfield, where you have the big city ammenities, but everything else that comes with big city living. And, for the record, I think Bakersfield gets a bad rap whenever anyone mentiones it in a thread. Bakersfield is great for food, malls, entertainment... but at my age, I like being able to leave the big city behind when I go home.

Sorry for writting a book. Just thought I'd let you know what it's really like to live up here and not just come for a visit every now and then.

[VickyVicky]

Tamara,
I am in the exact same predicament as you are. I live on lancaster East side also. I bought my house dirt cheap in 1999. So I have loads of equity, but last year with the recent real estate boom, two direct neighbors of mine sold their homes and both have now been turned into Section 8 Homes. I like my house, I hate my location. My street is a mixture of young couples, home owners, old timers, original residents, and now a mixed splattering of Section 8. Its really sad. But I have children also and have never dared to let them attend schools on this side of town. If we have to stay put my kids will be attending Private School once high school hits because Im not fond of ANY of the high schools or their ratings around here. Your kids are small so its a good time to get them out of here into a better school area. Visit greatschools.com for school info, ratings, parent reviews.

I just went and visited Tehachapi this past weekend, there are some comparable priced homes out there similar to Lancaster. I personally liked the feel of the area.. but Im not 100% sure either...

We are pretty close to one another, so I sympathize with you! If you ever need to talk, Let me know! We can support one another and offer help, or heck take trips to Tehachapi and Bakersfield to look at homes for sale!

[WyattKaldenberg]

Taft has a prison where your husband could work. It's a very cheap place to live. It's hot, but you come from a hot place. The crime rate is low and it's mostly rednecks who work in the oil patch who live there. It's like a small town in Texas. I lived there before they built the prison, so I don't know what kinds of people moved in because of that.

[tylorfull88]

Crime rate is not grate here but if you live in the right area your okay. With what you do for work both of you should do well (We love photo shops here). Tehachapi is up and growing now in the past few years. But it is a hour drive to Bakersfield and getting longer as traffic grows. Best place to go here is Rosedale, Seven or Hegan Oaks, Or up in the hills.

[DeserTBoB]

Originally Posted by VickyVicky

Tamara,
I am in the exact same predicament as you are. I live on lancaster East side also. I bought my house dirt cheap in 1999. So I have loads of equity, but last year with the recent real estate boom, two direct neighbors of mine sold their homes and both have now been turned into Section 8 Homes. I like my house, I hate my location. My street is a mixture of young couples, home owners, old timers, original residents, and now a mixed splattering of Section 8. Its really sad.

People remember me as the one who was crying that the real estate sky was falling in Antelope Valley two years ago...and I was right. I'm qualified to comment, because I was in exactly the same situation that Vicky and Tami were in...a "starter" home in the KB "Traditions" tract southeast of 30thE and K. I, too, bought dirt cheap ($84K cash) and experienced "equity euphoria," but got the hell out once the Section 8 ghettoids started moving in and began "banging in" to the area. The schools (Eastside District) are now as bad as the ones in Compton and parts of LAUSD in South Central LA. I've kept tabs with some of the remaining retirees and others I met in Traditions, but trips down there showed the area to have indeed turned into a full blown ghetto in a very short time. But, there HAVE been some encouraging signs lately, to wit:

- In the last year (roughly), seven or eight Sec. 8 "families" have been evicted from their rentals in Traditions for fraud and various rule violations, mostly for harassing other residents, drugs and harboring convicted felons. Some others were gone simply due to being deadbeats who wouldn't pay their part of the rent. A few of the Sec. 8 rentals are now standing vacant (and approaching foreclosure) because word has gotten around in "gangland" that the Sheriff's Office has finally decided to crack down on ghetto-style activity, as has the Housing Authority of LA County. Despite my earlier catcalls, it appears that the Housing Authority and the City have finally conceded that they have a big problem with Section 8, and city Section 8 investigators are indeed doing a fine, effective job, even though starved for real funding from the City of Lancaster...courtesy of "Bishop" Henry Hoines and his lackeys on the City Council.

- Non-Sec. 8 ghettoid renters are slowly being forced out, usually for municipal code violations, unlicensed dog violations and other things they're too stupid to understand. Due to LANCAP, any landlord owning two or more units in Lancaster must now have a business license to operate rental property. If the landlord allows illegal or threatening behavior on his property, he can lose his business license and there go the ghettoids. It's a slow, lugubrious process, but it is also working.

- Call response times by the Sheriff's Sub in Lancaster have decreased due to an influx of Academy grads and formation of new special action teams. People there now actually call for assistance and get a black and white. The ghettoids are seeing this and are running and hiding.

- Unscheduled patrols by the LASO are happening in the area now, which the ghettoids loitering in Skytower Park absolutely despise. Watch a B&W roll by and they scatter like roaches.

Here's my prognostication for Traditions, knowing the area and some of the people:

- The ghettoids will slowly be eradicated to controllable numbers as one ghetto landlord after another goes into foreclosure. Most bought during the boom with "fuzzy" financing, and losing a month or two of government checks puts them on the foreclosure path.

- Continued complaints to Code Enforcement by residents about trash, bad lawns, junk and other code violations are putting increased pressure to bear on the same landlords.

- The Sheriff WILL respond now to "boom box noise" complaints, regardless of time of day. This is a "cultural necessity" for ghettoids (as are crack cocaine, teenage pregnancy and marijuana); depriving them of it causes them depression.

- The neighborhood will continue to be substandard, but crime and harassment will probably not get any worse than it is now, as the ghettoids are slowly squeezed out when their landlords get fined, go bankrupt or into foreclosure. Once that happens and those remaining sell out due to a rising market, more will go as well.

- Those who got in with low prices and have tons of equity will be first in line to cash in when the market turns around after the mortgage industry is reregulated after Bush is sent into exile to his Paraguay "ranch"...a funny story in itself.

- The Eastside schools will start to improve once the ghettoids are thinned out...simple fact, when they become a large segment of a student body ANYWHERE, the school goes in the toilet, due to their innate genetic stupidity and bad "cultural behavior." Eastside now has an active program for suspending and expelling such scum kids, and reportedly it is helping ease problems at both Eastside (Trailer Camp) High and the middle school up the street.

- The gun play in Eastern Lancaster has decreased tremendously just in a year, mostly due to warrant sweep teams and Sec. 8 evictions. My last summer there, having the windows open at night let in a constant barrage of automatic handgun and rifle fire sounds. My friends down there now say it's almost a rarity. Fourth of July was bad for illegal fireworks, however, and the Sheriff's Substation was completely overwhelmed with calls.

If you can hold out, do so. You can NOT sell a house now in Traditions, even for under $200K. I know someone who's been trying for over a year now, and is now on the market for $195.5K, and if that doesn't sell, she's considering abandonment. (She's also $100K upside down on her house!) If you CAN hold out and call the Sheriff every time one of the ghettoids farts or looks at you funny, you will eventually reap a reasonable profit and be able to get out of there, all the while helping purge the area of undesirables.

Originally Posted by VickyVicky

I just went and visited Tehachapi this past weekend, there are some comparable priced homes out there similar to Lancaster. I personally liked the feel of the area.. but Im not 100% sure either...

I did move up there and still have mixed feelings, as well. It is quiet...VERY quiet. The biggest noise in town is the constant parade of UP and BNSF freights up and down the Pass through town. There are more Tri-Agency cops than there are crimes per day. There are no ghettoids that last for more than a few weeks before being jailed, and most come from Bakersfield, not Compton. Property has devalued equally as much or worse than it has in Lancaster. Sales in Tehachapi now take over 180 days after listing, showing the same malaise as Antelope Valley. It is too far from LA to get the services that LA has to offer, and Bakersfield doesn't offer much of anything at all that's worthwhile. The weather can be harsher than it is in Lancaster AT TIMES...including the wind (notice all the turbines around?) but you do NOT get the flying garbage in the air that you do in Antelope Valley. Example: Lancaster experienced record cold last year...3°F. At the same time, Tehachapi had 15°...still cold, but not near zero, and Tehach is over 2000 ft higher in elevation...which is a LOT. You do NOT miss the hot Lancaster summers and it's still dry enough up here to use a swamp cooler to conserve power, but the winters are colder, and snow is a certainty yearly...at least for now. Further global warming will probably change that soon. There are meth heads in Tehachapi...LOTS of them...but they tend to coagulate near downtown in the run down rentals just off the Blvd., and the cops are wise to them. Meth related small ripoffs and breakins are generally contained to that same area, although they tend to "get legs" when they need money. Tri-Agency is very proactive at rounding up meth heads and dealers, moreso than the LA County Sheriff in Lancaster. There ARE public housing projects in Tehachapi, but they're small and well controlled and patrolled. Most of the Mexican bangers live in the barrio shacks north of the tracks...a good place to avoid.

Stay away from the HOA "development," Stallion Springs. If you do not buy a horse shortly after buying there or already have at least one, they will run you out as a "rule violator." Whacko HOA "officers" will come onto your property for no reason at all to "inspect" your property for "compliance." They have their own "police force" filled with rejects from other, larger departments. If you try to move in against their wishes, they will make your life miserable and expensive. I know, I had a friend try and he sold at a loss in nine months to get rid of those clowns...and he's got horses! You can tell instantly upon driving up to the place...it's set up like a military installation! HOA fees aren't cheap, and any benefits (other than living in a homogeneous community of SUV-driving Bushies) are debatable. It's also too far from town and not close to Hwy 58.

Tehachapi proper has some dumpy areas as well, mostly in the city limits. There is nothing worth looking at north of the UP tracks. Similarly, there is nothing worth looking at around downtown. The west side of town, near the hills, can be very nice. There are new KB and other tracts going in south of town, but be careful...you may be moving into a flood plain. A given is that Kern County road maintenance is haphazard at best, and building codes in the county are as lax as they get. You will not get as well built a house there as you will usually get in LA County, period. Street lighting is the exception, as are curbs and sidewalks. Schools are statistically fair to very good. There are way too many churches per capita. Prices for staples...food, hardware, fuel, basic services...are expensive, although gasoline prices can be even lower at times than in Lancaster, due to proximity to the Bakersfield former Shell refinery and pipelines. Natural gas is from Sempra, not PG&E, so is cheaper than, say, Ridgecrest. Electricity is from Edison, also cheaper than PG&E in Bakersfield. USPS service is actually better here than in Lancaster, odd since they use the same Mojave sorting center.

Am I glad I dumped Lancaster for Tehacahpi? You bet! There ARE disadvantages up here, but I find I can work around them for the most part, but, for me anyway, going to LA for medical, veterinary or other services is an overnight trip vis à vis a commute from Lancaster. There are some rather screwy looking people here and there, as there are anywhere, but I love them in comparison to the ghettoids I left behind! Is it worth staying in Traditions (or worse, Eastgate) to wait for the neighborhood to "turn around?" No, make your plans to exit as soon as the market heats up again, even a little. There has been enough white flight out of Lancaster and Palmdale now to have permanently crippled the local economy, and the "cultural shift" toward crime and lower expectations has already taken root. It will never recover, and I fully expect both cities to be the new Compton and Watts within another five years. As soon as houses start moving (probably two years from now) GET OUT. Don't get stuck...like you did last time. COULD Lancaster recover? It COULD get better...IF the recall against "Bishop" Henry Hearns (who worked hard to get a lot of ghettoids up there in the first place through his feed barn church enterprise) and his City Council pals succeeds or they're voted out of office during the next cycle. WILL that happen? Hard to say...Lancaster, especially, rigs elections with off-beat election dates, muted press coverage and the like. Turnout is usually very low, and Hearns likes to illegally use the pulpit for political purposes. However, anger over how badly he's trashed the city has caused considerable ferment for his (and others') recalls.

Anyone reading this considering moving to Lancaster and Palmdale? One word of advice...DON'T! Let some suckers or BWJs from Inglewatts buy the houses next time...the rest of us are already long gone.

As someone who's probably the only TRUE native posting on this thing (family been in LA County since 1876) I can state without hesitation that Lancaster were the absolute WORST place I've ever lived in...period. You'll remember John Wayne's father saying that the Antelope Valley was a "hard place to live" when he abandoned the area, and that was 1916! So much for Old Bill's dream of a "desert metropolis!"

Trivia for the clueless: You know the valley street naming system (well, before Palmdale started screwing up the names and the FHA banned "straight streets" in the 1930s, anyway), right? Division Street does just that, and points southward directly at the old County Hall of Records in what is now East LA. All sections delineated by alpha and 10s of numerical names are subdivided into plots .1 mile wide by 1/16 mile tall...hence, there are 15 theoretical "numbered streets," from K-1 to K-15, between Aves. K and L. The original intent was for parcels that size to further be divided into homesteads and home lots, which would create the "metropolis." Avenue A is the Kern County line, and Avenue X is the furthest south, up around Crystalaire. I guess no one ventured further up the mountains to plot Aves. Y and Z!

Knowing this system makes finding any address on any alphanumerical street a snap even for the most idiotic of drivers...of which there are many down there. For example, an address of 24500 East Ave O-2 would be located at a point intersecting 245th St E and 1/8 of a mile south of Ave. O and would be exactly 24.5 miles east of Division Street in Palmdale. An address of 43500 10th St. E would be 43.5 air miles north and one mile east of the old County Hall of Records. The system, of course, was too smart, and lately, the Palmdale city idiots have been doing their best to make it not work anymore at all. The FHA-mandated "curvy streets" caused a lot of the alphanumeric streets to be lost, and "named" streets started showing up in both towns after they started going into new developments in the 1950s.

All the work of one man, in his "spare time"...William "Old Bill" Mulholland, founder of the Los Angeles Bureau of Power and Light (now the DWP) while he was building the LA Aqueduct circa 1914. Sadly, "Old Bill's" "metropolis in the desert" turned out to somewhat like the disaster that his St. Francis Dam did in 1928!