Hesperia, Adelanto and Victorville, YOUR THOUGHTS? (San Diego, San Francisco: trip , job, new house)

[MCS]

So, If Victorville, Hesperia and Adelanto aren't good places to live, where would you suggest I live since I'm going to be working in Barstow?

[Thunderbird]

I wouldn't say that all of Hesperia or Victorville does not have good places to live.

If you do not want to live in Barstow, less of a commute would be in Helendale/Silver Lakes. It's worth checking out.

Apple Valley in Desert Knolls area has an upper scale neighborhood with apartments for rent, close to all the shopping plus close to the freeway on ramp to commute to Barstow.

I can't think of any area in Victorville or Adelanto close to the freeway that "I" would want to live, nor would I want to commute from Hesperia when Desert Knolls and Helendale is closer and has nice places to live.

[MCS]

I'm looking for a furnished room in a house so my options are fairly limited.

[cleanfun]

Seeing your post is like watching a small animal approach a baited bear trap that you know is going to violently kill the critter.

Ok, I spent the majority of my life in these cities and I'm going to hit you with some brutal truth.

There is NO job in Victorville, Adelanto, Hesperia, Barstow, Silver Lakes, or Apple Valley that is worth moving yourself to the High Desert for. Even if your job title was "King of the High Desert" what exactly would you be the king of?

Imagine a world with no color but brown. Brown desert floor. Brown skin from exposure to the sun. Brown everything. Now add 50+mph wind that blow year-round.

There's an area called "The Zone" or "Felony Flats". It's less then 2 miles from Roy Rogers home... So ya, there isn't any "nice" place to live or to get away from it all. At it's height of civilization, you'll still be knee deep in filth.

Even Silver Lakes, a richy community between Victorville & Barstow, draws out thieves from all over the high desert because it's so secluded and it takes a cop about 45 minutes to drive out there. 30 if he's high-tailing it. Not to mention, it's situated next to the Lost Hog. (Biker Capitol) There are no shortage of drugs out in Silver Lakes. That's where a lot of people from around the high desert go to get "quantity". I wont even get into the renta-cop security force that's out there in Silver Lakes. I lived on Stirrup Lane for many years... In truth, Silver Lakes is the worst of them all. There's always some kind of rediculous drama. If you have a dirty yard, you get your picture in the monthly paper they distribute out there. Their little Riverview middle school is a complete joke when it comes to education. You had to catch the bus for Victorville High School before the sun even came up. A nice hour long trip each way, every day. Sucks to be young in Silver Lakes. Did I mention that those big expensive houses in Silver Lakes were built on uncompacted sinkholes? Well, it's a very common problem there, houses are cracked right down the middle, although still standing.

Most of my old buddies will be stuck there (High Desert) for life. You can't really make enough to get out unless it's your life's goal. I'm one of the very few fortunate ones from my clique that was able to escape the High Desert. Unfortunately, I went out of the pan and into the fire.

Just avoid California alltogether if you can.

Here are some pictures of what the High Desert looks like. (That's Apple Valley, Victorville, Hesperia, Adelanto, Barstow, etc...)

http://images.quantumvista.com/pacif...0/desert01.jpg
http://www.wilhelm-aerospace.org/Pho...igh-desert.jpg

They'll be tucked in the crevices of hills just like those in the first photo.

The second photo is all you see when driving from 1 of those towns to the next. Except maybe a couple of grave sites off of the side of the road.

[Thunderbird]

Cleanfun, those pictures are misleading.
I'm not sure where that is, but it definitely does not look like that from Apple Valley, to Hesperia, and Victorville.

[Livewire]

Originally Posted by cleanfun

Seeing your post is like watching a small animal approach a baited bear trap that you know is going to violently kill the critter.

Ok, I spent the majority of my life in these cities and I'm going to hit you with some brutal truth.

There is NO job in Victorville, Adelanto, Hesperia, Barstow, Silver Lakes, or Apple Valley that is worth moving yourself to the High Desert for. Even if your job title was "King of the High Desert" what exactly would you be the king of?

Imagine a world with no color but brown. Brown desert floor. Brown skin from exposure to the sun. Brown everything. Now add 50+mph wind that blow year-round.

There's an area called "The Zone" or "Felony Flats". It's less then 2 miles from Roy Rogers home... So ya, there isn't any "nice" place to live or to get away from it all. At it's height of civilization, you'll still be knee deep in filth.

Even Silver Lakes, a richy community between Victorville & Barstow, draws out thieves from all over the high desert because it's so secluded and it takes a cop about 45 minutes to drive out there. 30 if he's high-tailing it. Not to mention, it's situated next to the Lost Hog. (Biker Capitol) There are no shortage of drugs out in Silver Lakes. That's where a lot of people from around the high desert go to get "quantity". I wont even get into the renta-cop security force that's out there in Silver Lakes. I lived on Stirrup Lane for many years... In truth, Silver Lakes is the worst of them all. There's always some kind of rediculous drama. If you have a dirty yard, you get your picture in the monthly paper they distribute out there. Their little Riverview middle school is a complete joke when it comes to education. You had to catch the bus for Victorville High School before the sun even came up. A nice hour long trip each way, every day. Sucks to be young in Silver Lakes. Did I mention that those big expensive houses in Silver Lakes were built on uncompacted sinkholes? Well, it's a very common problem there, houses are cracked right down the middle, although still standing.

Most of my old buddies will be stuck there (High Desert) for life. You can't really make enough to get out unless it's your life's goal. I'm one of the very few fortunate ones from my clique that was able to escape the High Desert. Unfortunately, I went out of the pan and into the fire.

Just avoid California alltogether if you can.

Here are some pictures of what the High Desert looks like. (That's Apple Valley, Victorville, Hesperia, Adelanto, Barstow, etc...)

http://images.quantumvista.com/pacif...0/desert01.jpg
http://www.wilhelm-aerospace.org/Pho...igh-desert.jpg

They'll be tucked in the crevices of hills just like those in the first photo.

The second photo is all you see when driving from 1 of those towns to the next. Except maybe a couple of grave sites off of the side of the road.

Lol I thought the poster was describing parts of Arizona here. Same difference.
Id go back to Calif in a heartbeat, for the right reasons.

[tennesseedreamin]

My daughter moved up there (Hesperia) for a year and the drug problem was so bad, crackheads and meth addicts wandering around the neighborhood streets, that they finally moved out after a year. Get this, the very day they moved out squatters (homeless drug addicts) broke into her home (which they hadn't sold yet) and built a fire in her livingroom floor and burned the house down!

When her mother/father in law were building a house in Hesperia (cheaper land) their house was broken into several times and many things were vandalized or stolen. It took several months for them to finish the house because of all of these incidents.

When my daughter was there she had a baby and I went up for the event and while the hospital was in Victorville, the same area I had lived when my children were in diapers, I decided to go look at the old house. It was sad to see the house and neighborhood I remembered as pleasant fallen into decay and filled with scary questionable people.

I wouldn't advise my worst enemy to move to that area!
Noelle

[MCS]

Well some people say that it's not so bad while recent posts make it seems like it's the worse place to live. It looks like now I'll be living in Adelanto. Gangs are tricky. I've dealt with a few people from gangs and been around to different cities so to me it depends on how active/stupid they really are. As for drug users roaming the streets at odd times in the morning, I'm really not to happy to see that type of stuff.

[tasmtairy]

When my best friends Neice from FL came to live with him and stay at his Mom's to get away from the drug scene in FL, she is 17, it took her less than a week to hook up with some guys, do drugs, oh she had to sneak out of the house, and made help me phone calls in the middle of the night to her Grandma who is in her 60's, they had her back on a plane to FL the next day. Drugs are everywhere, if you want them. I just haven't heard nice things about the places you wish to live. Good luck, really. Why work in Barstow??

[sheri257]

I'm not one of those people who will defend where they live at all costs ... I'm realistic about this area. I've lived in Hesperia for four years ...

To be honest, the only reason we moved here was because we got a house for $150K and because the commute was fairly reasonable for better paying jobs down the hill. We wouldn't have moved here if it had cost any more than that though ... we're here because we can live cheap and make good money.

We got a fairly decent house on a nice big lot with a swimming pool so, that definitely helps with the hot summers. Although the heat isn't always that bad ... if the marine layer kicks in we can actually get down to the '80s sometimes. 110 degree days are actually pretty rare ... 90-100 is more the norm in summer.

And, because it's high desert, the pool water does stay relatively cool compared with low desert places like Palm Springs, where the pool water can get pretty warm ... sort of defeating the purpose of having a pool in the first place.

However, being the high desert also means the winters are colder ... surprizingly cold in fact. Sometimes down to the 30's. That was more of an adjustment for me, actually, rather than the heat.

People go on and on about the crime but, I just not seeing much of it. Yeah ... the police did chase a guy through our backyard one night but that happened when we lived in a good Orange County neighborhood also so ... I guess it doesn't freak me out that much. At least the police were doing their job.

If you look at the stats on this site, crime is up with the people who've moved here but it's still well below the national average.

Most of the incidents in our neighborhood have involved teenagers, nothing too serious. I actually like our police department. They worked with the neighborhood and really helped with the teenager problem. And one time the phone company screwed up an placed a bunch of 911 calls by mistake, one of which listed our phone number. The police woke us up to see if we were ok ... which we really appreciated.

My major complaints about this area are as follows: the infrastructure is in the dark ages. The roads suck and, I mean ... they really suck. They've done a lot more paving but, too many roads are still crumbling. There's no sidewalks in a lot of places and, there's little to no drainage so, when the rain does come, everything floods.

It's nuts but, we knew what we were getting into when we moved here so, I shouldn't complain.

I really would like some better restaurants but, I'm a picky eater so ... maybe that's the problem. I still go down the hill for shopping but, I'm also a picky shopper. Lots more retail is coming in so, maybe it will improve but ... I do think this area is still far behind when it comes to quality retail and restaurants.

The good news is that there's tons of business development and building so ... maybe things will improve in some areas like infrastructure but, I'm not counting on it. In a lot of ways, it's still a dumpy desert town but ... we're making bank here so ... naturally, that tends to improve our lifestyle in other ways.