Reliable online crime reports? (Silver Spring, Fort Washington: apartment, rental, sex offenders)

[JoeHC]

Greetings all-

I am moving to the DC area in May and looking for a rental beginning in June. I will be working in Suitland and would like to commute there via metro. I need 2 bedrooms since I have a wife and a college bound child. We are coming from Minneapolis and I currently live on a very quiet and safe neighborhood. I am willing to pay $2k a month. Safety is very important to me.

I have been looking online in the Takoma, Takoma Park, Silver Spring, Alexandria areas. I then run the address of the potential rental unit in crimespotter web site and it shows crime virtually everywhere I look on a daily basis.

Am I doing something wrong or is crime there really that bad?

Thanks for your input.

[adelphi_sky]

Originally Posted by JoeHC

Am I doing something wrong or is crime there really that bad?

Thanks for your input.

Yes. You're assuming that a "safe place" exists in this world. You may want to go further into detail about how you define safe. Are you looking for absolutely no crime as in not even a lawn chair stolen out of a back yard? Or are you talking about being safe from physical assault? In my neighborhood, people would certainly say it is unsafe, yet I have left my front door open all night (ac was busted and I needed cool air). My car doors have been mistakenly left unlocked for longer than 24 hours and nothing has been removed. My wife, bless her soul, leaves evidence of her i-products and GPS in her car and her car hasn't been broken into. Neither of us have been physically threatened or assaulted. Of the 15 years I've lived here, I have only had one car window busted out. That was from teens who also busted other windows along the street. But that's it.

That's why I take crime reports with a grain of salt. Safe is how you define it and how you choose to take precautions. Certainly there are higher risk areas like where i live, but even those risks can be mitigated with common sense. Would I leave my front door open all night today? Maybe not. I have a wife to protect now. Just my 2cents on crime. I think some people almost miss out on great neighborhoods by miscalculating what is safe. There are a few posters in here that have admitted to that.

[Cheasare]

Originally Posted by JoeHC

Greetings all-

I am moving to the DC area in May and looking for a rental beginning in June. I will be working in Suitland and would like to commute there via metro. I need 2 bedrooms since I have a wife and a college bound child. We are coming from Minneapolis and I currently live on a very quiet and safe neighborhood. I am willing to pay $2k a month. Safety is very important to me.

I have been looking online in the Takoma, Takoma Park, Silver Spring, Alexandria areas. I then run the address of the potential rental unit in crimespotter web site and it shows crime virtually everywhere I look on a daily basis.

Am I doing something wrong or is crime there really that bad?

Thanks for your input.

MC Department of Police: Law Enforcement Officer Safety Act

Montgomery County Maryland (Silver Spring and part of Takoma Park are located in MOCO) uses CrimeReports.com. You can enter a zip code and see types of crimes committed on a map--e.x. theft from vehicles, assaults, and locations of registered sex offenders etc. Areas around the DC Metro area can be very densely populated so the maps may show lots of crime events even though you as an individual may never experience them.

I ran my own zip code (20815) and can see thefts from vehicles and other various crimes but I have never personally experienced any crime in my neighborhood. Of course I keep my home and car doors locked and I don't display any electronic devices/cords etc that might entice a would be thief. I'm very aware of the surrounding area and I know my neighbors and their kids so we tend to look out for one another. I get packages delivered all the time from UPS/FEDEX and there always on my porch when I get home even when I arrive late in the evening.

Like the previous poster said common sense behaviors and practices go along way towards keeping you safe and feeling secure.

C.

[goldenage1]

Originally Posted by Cheasare

I ran my own zip code (20815) and can see thefts from vehicles and other various crimes but I have never personally experienced any crime in my neighborhood. Of course I keep my home and car doors locked and I don't display any electronic devices/cords etc that might entice a would be thief.

Of course a zip code is a very big unit with a diversity of housing. The areas in Takoma Park and Silver Spring around the Metros will show a lot of opportunistic crime- petty theft and car break-ins.

If you want to have less of this type of crime, move further away from the metro stop into a single family or townhouse neighborhoods. The trade-off might be that you take a bus to the metro stop rather than walk. IMO, it is worth it to be further away from the metro stops.

Or, look at high-rises with controlled access. You might look at the nice, newer apartment areas in Hyattsville.

[Fast GTO]

crimereports.com doesn't report properly for NoVA, which is why when you compare PG to NoVA it looks pretty out of whack, especially since NoVA is significantly denser.

[molukai]

I live in Fort Washington (20744) with my wife and 3 year old and it is ~10 miles from Suitland by car. I mention this because if you type in 'Fort Washington, MD' on crimereports you will see there is really no crime in that area.

It is overwhelmingly a SFH region, but you can also get a brand new attractive house in one of the nicer communities (those with 'Tantallon' linked names) for easily 1.5K/month mortgage.

If safety is your thing, then you might want to consider here.

[Zimar]

Well, you have to take the crimereports websites with a grain of salt. I've found that crimes "disappear" from day to day, etc. We lived for four years in downtown Silver Spring, which seems terrible based on crime reports websites, but nothing ever happened to us or in our building. Oh, I did once see a woman board the metro without paying fare. As long as the area does not have violent crime, such as robberies, murders, rapes, etc., and you are someone who uses common sense when living in an urban area, you should be ok.