Living in the Spirit Lake, Idaho area??? (Post Falls, Rathdrum: first time home buyer, neighborhood)

[lowland bound]

living around spirit is not the greatest. i bought ten acres to develpoe and live on, but sold it due to all the meth tweekers around the property. i have another property near athol and the neighbors there are selfish and arrogant.they wont help you fix roads, or pitch in on anything that helps the community, but will be glad to use it as soon as you get done paying for, and doing all the hard work.people around there think they can do anything they want to with no regard for the environment,wildlife or each other.as far as employment, lowest wages around. idaho is a right to work state and employers can and will do anything they want to employees.there are three kinds of people around there,the rich, the poor, and those who will become poor,thanks to the rich.im sure there must be some good folks,but they must be far and few between. look elsewhere for a friendlier place to call home.

[im5150too]

Originally Posted by lowland bound

there are three kinds of people around there,the rich, the poor, and those who will become poor,thanks to the rich.

Yup, those rich people.......just stealing money from the poor all day long......

[Greensleeves]

Originally Posted by im5150too

Yup, those rich people.......just stealing money from the poor all day long......

I guess you're not familiar with the concept of being priced out of your own neighborhood?

I found out how it works when a developer came in and put in some new townhouses on my block.

[lowland bound]

i guess its the same everywhere as far as being "priced" out of the neighborhood. the real shame with the rich people around the beautiful area of the north panhandle is mostly that they never worked as hard as those trying to live their dream by being willing to do the hard work. to move to this area you must be willing to work hard at daily life,logging, clearing, shoveling lots of snow etc.,the rich move in with their big bag of money,build gigantic homes,which drives up taxes, and leave town when winter rolls around.anyone who has had to rely on their backbone to have whst they desire cannot help but feel resentment for those who have all the cake, and eat it too.in the three years that i have spent developing my property, i have seen alot of growth in the area.they are building a bigger highway,wich will bring more people to the area.bayview has been bought up by rich developers,and they are running all of the local people out of their town so condo's can take the place of the existing homes.the owners of silverwood will be building a great big hotel in athol, and it is rumored that they plan to bring in "guest workers" from mexico and the phillipenes,so there goes the jobs for the locals.so believe what you will about the athol, spirit lake area,but do the research first. as for me, i will be selling soon in hopes of finding that "last frontier" where you are measured by the work you do and not the money you have.

[lowland bound]

im 5150too, i notice that you are from socal. you must be one of the rich people who bought land in the area, but go home to L.A. when living there gets tough? otherwise what are you concerned about the rich stealing from the poor all day long? noone said they steal from the poor. when rich people move into an area,the price of goods goes up.when folks who have had to take the meager pay offered locally,just to scratch out a living ,have to pay more due to the new upscale neighborhood,they start going backward in life.i know alot of these folks in the area who simply cannot afford much at all.most people depend on food stamps and the food bank to feed their children.compare shopping in coeur d' alene with out of town stores. you will see how the local govt. caters to the rich for want of their money.i have personally experienced this financially lopsided distribution of wealth.talk is cheap, go live there ALL year long, meet some of the poorer locals,then you can comment on how the struggle,while the rich live soo comfortably.

[Sage of Sagle]

I think im5150too was being facetious.

Blaming people for moving to an area is futile. Provided that infrastructure is developed at a proper pace, it's no different than the reasonable growth Idaho has seen over the 1990-2000 decade. It's when growth outstrips the infrastructure that huge problems arise.

Lowland bound, I think you know you're really on shaky logical ground making broad generalizations. Blaming "the rich" for moving to an area is like blaming "the poor" for crime. It's a misplaced blame at best, patently unfair.

There will always be people to buy Mercedes and people who can barely afford a decade old Subie. That's just the way of life in a society with varied socio-economic levels. And there will always be people moving around the country looking for a better life for their families, and/or looking to live in an area of better economic viability.

So the only way (barring a declining population in our country) to stop people from moving anywhere near where you live is to live somewhere undesirable. Live somewhere that's written up often in travel guides, and guess what? People will want to move there.

I think a lesson we should be learning, and applying to how we vote and enforce local ordinances, is that we cannot stop "growth" in a popular/desirable area, but we can enact zoning rules that keep an area from becoming horridly crowded. So I will fight tooth and nail for Bonner County to keep the 5 acre minimum rule, as I think that's one step in protecting an area from being overdeveloped. But I cannot stop people from moving here.

I think we need to also define affluence, since you throw the word "rich" around like it was a synonym for "child molester".

There are always going to be people richer than you, and people poorer than you. Which income level do YOU consider "rich", to define terms of "who" we should be upset with? Are you upset with anyone making double the minimum wage? How about triple? Can I be angry with anyone making 2.3x the minimum wage who moves here?

Now, before you get upset, I'm not actually going after you. I'm just trying to have us scale back the conversation a bit and define what's maybe a more reasonable level of discourse before we start throwing out terms that perhaps are unjustly condemning of large groups of people (and CDF members).

I'm more concerned with the people who move here being of a similar general mindset that meshes with NID values over the amount in their checkbook....

[lowland bound]

sage of sagle, i appreciate your words in regards to keeping the posts from getting too negative. i also appologise if i offended you or others by saying that rich people are rich. perhaps more financially secure or a bit more well off or such would have been a better choice of words. i dont know what you do for a living but i can tell you that i have worked hard my whole life just be able to save enough money to try to have my little cabin in the woods.i should know better than to join one of these post forums as it always leads to some kind of online argument. i am going to unsubscribe now as it is useless to share personal experiences with others. i will continue to re-hab my little cabin with the hope of living there full time soon.whether i stay there forever is to be seen. have a nice life, as it is very nice in sagle,and closer to sandpoint. i looked there before buying in athol. actually i have developed several properties from atholto blanchard to spirit lake to oldtown. some communities are nicer than others,at least when it comes to the folks that one meets there.i am not a big developer,but only an equipment operator who has tried to provide a better life for his wife and children. anyway, i will try to stay positive, and who knows, perhaps i will see you at the flea market some time.

[Sage of Sagle]

It's too bad that you'd want to unsubscribe because someone takes exception to you making a rather bold assertion negatively about a group of people. Perhaps it's more of a "lesson learned" about posting on a public forum, and we can continue to hear from your valuable life experiences making it work here in NID with a unique set of challenging circumstances. I think we have much to still hear from you...if you're willing to continue to stay and share (just watch the hyperbole and/or sweeping generalizations, huh?)

[im5150too]

Originally Posted by Greensleeves

I guess you're not familiar with the concept of being priced out of your own neighborhood?

Actually, as someone who grew up in socal, I'm very familiar with the concept being priced out of my own neighborhood.

It's obviously in vogue to blame "rich people" or especially "rich Californians" for property values going up, kinda ignoring what happened to those who've lived in CA for most of their lives. Rural areas of socal that I used to go hunting on are now teeming metropolis's. Anyone making under upper, upper middle class, has been priced out of the housing market for many, many years. Most of the population of CA are from "somewhere else".

I have family in Idaho, so I can certainly understand how many feel.

But take comfort in the fact that property values in CA have dropped more than in most of the rest of the country, and a lot of those "rich Californians", who were really only rich because of the property values, are no longer rich.

[bigbob25]

north idaho stinks cold nasty glooomy winters , the worst economy ever and is rated 9th as far as foreclosures go and the people are greedy and uptight hahahaha go to spokane 20 miles west and why is evrything in idaho higher ??? greedy bs Idahos a dive and the friggin people here have ruined this area period in the last few years theyve lot close to 1000 jobs here in the construction industry WHY? greed I d warn anyone be very carefull moving to idahooooo, idaho its also way tooo right wing up tight conservative bs I wish id had not made the terrible mistake of relocating here but wish id for my families sake went to wash state where you can at least make some monye and surivive and buy things at a lot lower price