Living in a Beach Community (Wilmington, Lewes: sales, foreclosed, how much)

[rdlr]

Originally Posted by Caladium

For those of you who have lived in the coastal areas a few years.....

how have these communities changed since you first moved in? What changes do you see coming in the future?

What do you think Bethany, Rehoboth and Lewes will be like 10 years from now (or, maybe 20 years from now)?

I've lived here in Delaware forever, and as a kid, the Delaware beaches were our playground. I've witnessed it change for the good, and bad. More money is being spent in the beach areas, which is good for our local economy. But it is a doubled-edged sword. The natives I know (even the kids) don't even go down there anymore. When we were kids we visited the beach towns almost every day all summer. As teens, we lived down there all summer and worked in the pizza and donut shops.

Progress is a good thing, I guess, and change is inevitable. I look for the beach areas to become more crowded, and crime to increase. We have great memories of how it once was, but time moves on.

[DelawareLiz]

Agree with rdlr again. When I first moved here in '85, route one in Rehoboth/Lewes was like a ghost town after October or so until around April. And I mean d-e-a-d. That was before the outlets and all the other building going on in the area. Crime in the Lewes/Rehoboth area has increased quite a bit in since then, and even more so in the past ten years. LOTS of hard drugs in the Rehoboth area. LOTS. Of course, that leads to more crime. I believe it will get worse before it gets better in that area. I still wouldn't tell somebody not to move there. Danger is not a concern so long as you avoid the "bad" areas and travel with others if visiting Rehoboth boardwalk during a summer evening.

Bethany/Ocean View is still quite dead from November until around April. However, property crimes have increased due to an increased population and (of course) more drugs. The sewer expansion project in Ocean View/Millville chased some of the trash out and bumped up the prices (and requirements) for rentals. It was a godsend even though I cursed it daily when it was being installed in my development. I think that my area will be spared from the violent crime that is occurring in surrounding beach areas such as Rehoboth and Ocean City, MD. There really isn't anything here for gang members and we don't have any section eight housing.

My son works in Bethany Beach and I feel he's safe there--even rides his bike to and from work. However, my visits to boardwalks during the summer are few and far between. As rdlr stated, it used to be the norm for locals to visit the beach often....not anymore. Most locals shy away from the beach from May to September, and they typically go during the week if they do go to the beach. I prefer to enjoy our inland bays instead during the summer .

[Caladium]

What sort of drugs are we talking about in Rehoboth? Mostly cocaine? Meth labs? Heroin? Are you likely to see addicts passed out in alleys? If you aren't part of the drug world and take some basic precautions (like not leaving your house unlocked and not walking on the boardwalk alone) are you likely to be aware of the druggies?

Also, is the drug problem worse in the summer, or is it a year round problem? Is it mostly just Rehoboth/Dewey, or is it bad in Lewes too?

[DelawareLiz]

As far as I know, meth is only in western areas of Delaware....not to say that meth heads don't visit the beach though.

Cocaine, crack, weed and PILLS are beach area drugs. Pills are the worst. Some heroin as well, along with hallucinogenic drugs (mainly a Rehoboth thing).

You won't see anyone passed out in an alley in Lewes or my area, but you never know in Rehoboth. Lewes has drugs as well but not as bad as Rehoboth.

Never trust a druggie around here; they will rob you blind. They love to target newcomers and the elderly. Drugs are year-round here but they do increase during the summer. If you live in a decent area, you most likely won't notice the drugs but that's not a guarantee. I live in a nice area and I had a recently released drug dealer/user living across from me for a short period of time with his elderly family member. That's something that always struck me as odd. In Sussex, it is almost "normal" for people to have family members move in and out with them. Oh well, better them than me. Anyway, let me just say he didn't last very long with me as a neighbor. Living with that element nearby can make your life go from happy-go-lucky to a living hell, believe me.

[Caladium]

I'm glad to hear that there aren't many meth labs near the beach. It's worrisome that druggies target the elderly, however. Also, worrisome that you had to deal with a recently released drug dealer/user living with a family member in your neighborhood.

I'm not trying to be nosy, but what sort of problems did you have to deal with? Was it just a matter that he was noisy or drove a car too fast, or did he do more serious things like damage your property, break into homes, threaten people, etc.? This is a serious concern for me because I plan to do a lot of walking. I'm worried that if I have to deal with someone, he may retaliate in some way and my property will be vandalized or I could be attacked while taking a walk.

Avoiding crime issues was one of the big reasons I was looking at Oceanview instead of Lewes. I was hoping that since it was a little bit inland, it might be relatively free of the problems with druggies/renters. But maybe not?

[DelawareLiz]

He was not necessarily noisy (was actually a quiet, reserved young man), but the constant drug traffic all night long pulling in and out of the driveway was awful--and the driveway was directly across from our bedroom. They also sped through the development. They had the "boom boom" car radios and cars which had exhaust issues...stereotypical druggie trash. I would not allow my son to ride his bike when I saw the guy had clients.

He knew not to mess with us for reasons I will not mention here (hehe!). Actually, I knew him since he was a young boy and he "liked" us and never really did anything personally to us. However, he had all kinds of buddies staying there on and off, and one couple who lived in his shed is the couple I posted that article about in another thread. It was the company he attracted that was the threat. But, that's all cleaned up now and we only see him now when he visits his relative. Nobody over there ever threatened us, but his presence was a horrible nuisance. There was one punk who would wave to us when we saw the cops over there and peeked out our window--but he was mentally insane and had been recently released from a mental institution.

Actually, the farther inland you go in Sussex, the more druggies there are and the more "accepted" it is to have them as neighbors. There is more poverty inland. My husband was raised in west Seaford and having drugs around was just a part of life unless you could afford a very affluent area. His parents are surrounded by drugs, dealers, prostitutes, cons, etc. and they live in what was once a halfway decent area.

I'd still say that Ocean View has way less drugs than Rehoboth; it's just more evident in Rehoboth, generally speaking. Since the guy next door left, we have had zero drug activity in my development. It just takes one loser and there's goes the neighborhood!!

[Caladium]

Thanks beachliz! I can see how that would be incredibly annoying, but still it's nowhere near as bad as I had feared. I had visions of being mugged when I went out walking or something dreadful like that. OK, Oceanview has it's problems--but I don't know of any beach community that doesn't have problems like that so I guess we'll have to live with it.

[DelawareLiz]

We joked that our temporary neighbor was a "kindler, gentler drug dealer"--LOL!! Youll find drug dealers/addicts are more threatening when you move to areas with gang ties.

Yes, all beach communities have the p.i.t.a. renter and drug issues I've mentioned. I have never been harassed or threatened during my nine years in Ocean View, and I even ride my bike during the evening. Now, living in Oak Orchard was a different story--never again!

[Caladium]

Originally Posted by beachliz

We joked that our temporary neighbor was a "kindler, gentler drug dealer"--LOL!! Youll find drug dealers/addicts are more threatening when you move to areas with gang ties.

Exactly! That's why I'm trying to sort out which areas are (and aren't) big deals. Druggies I can deal with, druggies +gangs are a problem. On the same subject, which parts of Rehoboth have the worst problems? I know the area near Hebron Road, but how about the area around Silver Lake. We saw a house on Scarborough that I really like, but I'm nervous that it's a little close to St. Edmonds. I've heard that St. Edmonds has a lot of programs for homeless people--which in many ways I think is wonderful--but which also makes me wonder if the streets nearby have gang/crime issues.

Also, where is Oak Orchard?

[DelawareLiz]

Oak Orchard is in hell....LOL!! Actually, it's west of Long Neck, closer to Millsboro--about 10 miles west of route one. Lots of low income trailer parks, drug addicts, and now gang activity. I lived in one of the few nicer developments there when my parents moved us to Sussex, and it was bad back even in the 80's-90's when I lived there. We rarely left the development due to grown harassing me when I was a teenager, lots of drunks and druggies, dealers constantly trying to sell us drugs, and even weirdos stalking us while we rode our bikes or took walks. I could go on and on. It's now 10 x worse...thank goodness we all made like sheep and got the flock outta there!!

Silver Lake is a really nice area although I don't know anyone who lives there. The thing about Delaware is that you are always a stone's throw away from somebody on drugs because we are one of the top states in the nation for drug abuse. You can live in a Toll Bros. community and have a dirtbag living not even a half mile away. I have had very bad experiences with druggies and seen first hand what it can do to people's lives and loved ones, and I really dislike being around anyone associated with drugs. Given I'm a teacher, that is the outlook I should have anyway.

Just be sure you move to an area that has proactive, not reactive neighbors. I found that only I and three other people in here would do anything about any nonsense that went on (obnoxious renters, parties, drugs, etc.) and the rest would sit around and twiddle their thumbs. Typically the newer the area, the less tolerance there is for undesirable behaviors or neighbors.