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I grew up in Florida. My husband and I moved back to FL with our kids in the summer of 2010 and everything seems to have gone wrong. In a way, I had to experience this so that I could put Florida out of my mind forever. It's tough because I've lived in FL most of my life since 1974 and my family is still here (in our original childhood home). Lots of roots here, but this place is just not going to work out for our careers and as a place to raise our young children.
We bought a home that turned into a disaster. We are actually closing on the sale of it today, after only 15 months of ownership. There's a man who lives behind our home who shoots high-powered rifles all the time, just 200 feet from our family room sofa. I can stand at the kitchen sink and watch him. My kids are scared and the awesome yard that we thought we would enjoy is useless. Add in the fact that FL law recently changed and there is nothing at all (not even a noise complaint) that we can do about that situation basically forced us to abandon the house. It's just beyond absurd. The house is in a subdivision, in the city limits. It's a long and stressful story where I did everything I could to try and remedy the situation, but to no avail.
I was getting something pretty close to PTSD from the cannon-like noise, even inside my home! A total nightmare for us.
But we wanted to get "free" so we could move anyway, so now we are renting a house.
Then my husband lost his job this summer (but found a new one just 6 weeks later, with the same employer - as crazy as that is. I won't get into the whole story, but it's just another obstacle that we faced and overcame here)
Then we had the 2 daytime home-invasion style break-ins in my little neighborhood. A gang member kicked the front door in on two homes at 1PM last fall. Random and scary. Just another friendly "welcome back to FL" for me! A few doors down and that would have been me, sitting there with my kids, when a gang member kicks the front door in. Then what???
So the writing is on the wall that we will leave FL at some point. We need to find our forever place and just make it work. There has to be a better place for quality of life out there for us. We're doing our research now and we're going to make one more move. I thankful that we are in a position to do this, so it could be a lot worse. The only way to go from here is up.
OP here - sorry to hear that so many of us have had difficult times when we've relocated. at the very least i'm hoping we've all learned something from these experiences (even if it's just to stay the hell away from that particular area. )
Most of my moves turn out pretty good. Only Florida sucked rocks, and I did learn to stay the heck away from Florida. ^_^
There's a man who lives behind our home who shoots high-powered rifles all the time, just 200 feet from our family room sofa. I can stand at the kitchen sink and watch him.
Add in the fact that FL law recently changed and there is nothing at all (not even a noise complaint) that we can do about that situation basically forced us to abandon the house. It's just beyond absurd. The house is in a subdivision, in the city limits. It's a long and stressful story where I did everything I could to try and remedy the situation, but to no avail.
Then my husband lost his job this summer (but found a new one just 6 weeks later, with the same employer - as crazy as that is. I won't get into the whole story, but it's just another obstacle that we faced and overcame here)
Then we had the 2 daytime home-invasion style break-ins in my little neighborhood. A gang member kicked the front door in on two homes at 1PM last fall. Random and scary. Just another friendly "welcome back to FL" for me!
So the writing is on the wall that we will leave FL at some point.
All of these are unfortunate events and sorry to hear them. I find it interesting that you blame FL as a whole (which each region in the state is different).
You state that it is FL Law that this man is allowed to shoot his rifles and be noisy. I live in FL and know that one could not do this in my neighborhood. It's your local law's that are allowing this to happen. You picked your neighborhood poorly. That's unfortunate, but I don't think one can blame a geographical place for your choice.
Same employer laid off your husband and hired him back? That's very strange. I couldn't imagine. Glad he was able to find work again though.
Daytime home invasions by gang members. Again, wrong neighborhood. Lock your doors. In addition, most home invasions, especially during the daytime are by someone the people know or are associated with. Typically it is related to drugs.
Good luck on your move. Sounds like it's been painful and heartbreaking, but you'll find your happy place. Hopefully sooner than later. I truly hope things turn around for you and things get better.
Sometimes, what seems very bad, turns out to be good if you hang in.
We are from the frozen north, where we raised our kids, have lots of friends and had a lovely home and lifestyle, then the bottom dropped outof the industry my DH was in, so he closed up shop and went to work as a sales rep for a national company. We finally sold our house after 3+ years and left behind the big house (that I had come to hate) and the monster yard (a maintenance nightmare) and didn't look back.
So we get moved-horrible experience- to a little house that is perfect for us and DH gets fired. I got a job and he collected unemployment until he got another job....The moral of the story is. I love my job, he loves his job, we love our little brick house and manageable yard, and the climate is fabulous.
All of these are unfortunate events and sorry to hear them. I find it interesting that you blame FL as a whole (which each region in the state is different).
You state that it is FL Law that this man is allowed to shoot his rifles and be noisy. I live in FL and know that one could not do this in my neighborhood. It's your local law's that are allowing this to happen. You picked your neighborhood poorly. That's unfortunate, but I don't think one can blame a geographical place for your choice.
Same employer laid off your husband and hired him back? That's very strange. I couldn't imagine. Glad he was able to find work again though.
Daytime home invasions by gang members. Again, wrong neighborhood. Lock your doors. In addition, most home invasions, especially during the daytime are by someone the people know or are associated with. Typically it is related to drugs.
Good luck on your move. Sounds like it's been painful and heartbreaking, but you'll find your happy place. Hopefully sooner than later. I truly hope things turn around for you and things get better.
This is NOT correct. I have been researching this issue for over a year now. There WERE local laws (county ordinances) concerning distance for shooting, but those were thrown out in order to comply with the new Florida law. Very few people seem to be aware of this, although it has been all over the news.
My county used to specify that you had to be at least 450 feet away from any other homes in order to shoot guns. Also, many cities had "blanket bans" saying no shooting in city limits at all. ALL of those city/ county laws are now illegal under the new FL law. The only law in FL now regarding guns is what is in the Florida state statutes. Again, the state statutes do not require any distance requirement. You can technically shoot anywhere (just not in public). As long as you can set up a "safe backstop", you can target shoot all day and all night right next to a home, school, church, or whatever.
Call your local police, or city/ county attorney. They will tell you the same thing. I spoke with everyone and they said it's a total nightmare for law enforcement. However, the police will not touch this with a 10 foot pole because the new law has very strict penalties. The policeman can be fined/ fired, and the city can face penalties and will have to pay attorney fees for any gun owner whose rights are infringed.
In fact, the Florida attorney general told my county's attorney that FL interprets the new law as also meaning that all county/ city noise ordinances regarding gun noise are also null and void. The police told me they would not even take a noise complaint about the man's shooting activities. So he is now free to shoot as close to my home as he can get (while staying on his own property), and he can shoot all day or all night, or whenever and there is not one single thing I can do about it.
Same employer laid off your husband and hired him back? That's very strange. I couldn't imagine. Glad he was able to find work again though.
Ive had that happen to me only they cut hours and then i went back fulltime. Sometimes employers have to do this just to balance the books. Wish they could do that for everybody instead of laying off completely.
great post. i agree not your imagination.
you got rep.
i have seen the opposite as well.
there are places where you are just plain stronger.
moving can be a good thing.
also staying put. one must listen to the still small voice.
I'm curious if you've ever lived in a place where it seemed all your luck went completely out the window? Or bad things just seemed to find you? To the ridiculous point where you feel like this must be a sign that this city is not for you and vice versa and you ought to leave?
I moved to a city three separate times, didn't live there long (a matter of months), and went through some of the worst experiences of my life. They could have happened anywhere, true, but it just got to me that they always happened immediately when I moved there. I really wasn't able to be happy living there because bad things kept happening. I even felt like the city was trying to drive me out, like I was cursed. Not literally, but it was just amazing how many bad memories I'd created in such a short time. You don't want to blame the city itself, but then again, you're thinking, "wow, I just can't win here." Maybe we just can't ever jive well in certain places? I don't know.
Ever moved to a city that had the same effect on you? What happened? Did you give up and leave or stick it out?
That city for me was Seattle. I actually had a friend tell me that if she didn't know me, she would never believe any of it could happen to one person.
It would take me pages to list off all the fricken things that went wrong there but I'll share this little info:
I was driving home from work one day, almost home, at an intersection in West Seattle. There were three lanes on my side and three lanes on the opposite side. Two of those lanes, on both sides, were for going through the intersection and one of those lanes was to turn left at the intersection.
I was going through the intersection.
My light was green as I passed under it. The SUV to the left of me, who was going to turn left, had stopped to yield to oncoming traffic. A car in the left turn lane in the opposite direction could not see me because of the SUV, so he thought the coast was clear and t-boned my car.
The female cop, who didn't even ASK for my side of the story, promptly ripped me off a ticket for running a red light. That light was nowhere near red. I questioned how on earth could I get a ticket for a red light when the light was green and also, if I and the other car who hit me were using the same light, how is it only my light was red but his was not? She didn't say a word to me, was very rude and arrogant and walked away from me.
Called my insurance company and they finally got all the reports and every single person, even the other driver who hit me all said that the light was NOT red.
I got a lawyer.
Two months later, my lawyer died. (So luck was actually worse for him.)
I was not told this until FOUR months later and this was AFTER I had already gone to court to fight this ticket to find my lawyer did not show. (I did not know he was dead, for crying out loud.)
In January, (the accident happened in June), the driver who hit me, who admitted we did not have a red light, who t-boned me, who was at fault, got a fricken check for $10,000 and I got stuck with a "running red light" and accident on my record.
All the other stories are WORSE than that one.
After living there and fighting it for 13 years, I got the hell out. My luck has been MUCH better since then. Sure, things happen anywhere and I've not had perfect, good, amazing luck in every place I've lived but no place has even come close to how horrible life was when I lived in Seattle. Everything you could possibly think of, went wrong. This is the city where I was homeless, starving and things just kept happening even though I graduated high school with good grades, had been in the military, had gone to college, did not live "beyond my means", and at one point ended up working three jobs so I could just save up to get. out!
I am out and I am never going back. Seattle is fine...but apparently Seattle and I do not mix well at all.
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i hope you find your new forever home very soon. what areas are you looking at?