Belfast Anyone? (insurance, sex offender, bankruptcy)

[ontheroad]

I love Belfast, but was unable to find a way to live there for some of the reasons folks have already mentioned. My two cents: Maine in general requires traveling long-ish distances for good employment; culture exists but like other rural areas, it is spread out and requires organisational skills ; health care in normally found in larger cities not small hamlets like Belfast.

The upside of Belfast is its beauty, it's relative central location to larger communities; its coastal proximity (just beautiful); friendly, friendly folk, young and old; somewhat reasonably priced housing; fresh and good food at the markets, and much more.

If you have a partner, and you do, and this is where you want to be, I'd recommend a one month visit to explore the region, in general, to see what it offers. What is not available in Belfast proper is often available a few miles away in another small community or one of the larger towns nearby.

And, btw, I am an artist, and while Belfast is artsy, it is not an artist community in the true sense of the word.

Originally Posted by keyboard komuso

wow! I really appreciate the honest answers, annimmaine, though I was a bit shocked and disappointed. Not exactly painting a pretty picture, but the kind of information we needed to hear. As I posted earlier we have no children or commitments, and can basically move anywhere. Perhaps southern Maine may have more opportunity for work, good hospitals, culture, etc. I know my field, graphic design is rather specialized, and larger cities would have more opportunities. We just want a slower, simpler pace of life. Maybe we should check out Rockland as you mentioned, or Freeport and that area...

[Coaster]

Originally Posted by Fort Lauderdale mermaid

Is Down East Magazine still located in Camden? That might be a possible job opportunity, while I realize that Belfast and Camden are not next door to each other it isn't a horrible commute. (except in the summer -)

Down East is now on Route 1 in Rockport, has been since the late 1970s. I go by there frequently and have stopped in their bookstore. The same company also publishes books and two other magazines -- Fly Rod and Reel and Shooting Sportsman -- plus it's a big book publisher. I'm sure they have a website.

[keyboard komuso]

Again, I thank you all for your input. We are now thoroughly confused! We are still visiting Belfast as planned. As we look through the Belfast visitors guide it seems like exactly the kind of place we are looking for, and there does seem to be a lot going on year round. Of course a visitor's guide is designed to highlight the area. This is not a snap decision on our part. It's been 5 years in the making. We've been to Bangor in all seasons to get a feel for it's vibe. Very nice people! Something was missing though for us. The idea of "Arts in the Park", farmer's markets, small galleries, boutiques and coffee shops, are all very appealing. Yes, we need day jobs but our goal is to sell our art. My wife makes jewelry, and I musical instruments, as well as create and produce original music. The goal being to get involved in the local art scene. We live modestly, and while money is necessary to survive it's not the focus of our lives. To do what we love and live in a place that would nurture our passions, that's our idea of wealth. While areas like Freeport or Portland may offer more employment opportunities, they may be just as "hussle-bussle" as what we are used to, and want to get away from. Of course another option may be smaller towns outside of the Freeport area, giving us the best of both worlds. Hospitals are a major concern because my wife had a partial thyroidectomy a few years ago, and as a result must have access to a good Endocrinologist. I just went on the Waldo County General Hospital website and don't see an Endocrinology department, or Endocrinologist listed on staff. This may be another reason to be near a larger city. I notice a lot of people saying how expensive Maine is to live in. Why is that, other than the obvious heating cost? We live in New York, and I can't imagine taxes being any worse than here ($6000 a year on the low side, upwards to $15,000 and up in the "Ritzy" neighborhoods!). Housing prices also seem low compared to our $300k for a modest home in a crappy neighborhood. You've all been extremely helpful and we appreciate it.

[ontheroad]

keyboard komuso,

I'm a former New Yorker (three States ago, but only a couple of years ago) and if you live in or near NYC, you'll find that health care specialists are at a premium in more rural areas. Where I live now and only 7 miles from the NYS line, is bereft of specialists. We have one good family doctor who appears to do nearly everything.

You might think of moving closer to Portland, but not into Portland itself. The hospital and services there come with a good reputation.

Also the Waldo Chamber are paid to make Belfast look good. Mind you, it is good, but it is smaller by far than one imagines on a day to day basis, and I was there until June (2007) and the cafe was just beginning to catch on.

Visit, enjoy and if you need a motel-hotel recommendation, I can say without reservation that the Belfast Harbor Inn is excellent and affordable for longer visits. They treated me like family.

[Bydand]

Dollar for dollar the taxes are not as high as some other places, but, neither are wages or house values. 300K is what, about 9K in taxes down in NY? that makes it about 3% of value. Here in the cities and towns the taxes are higher than the Unorganized townships and for my area a home with a value of 54,000 will pay about 2K in taxes (about 3.7%). Couple that with lower overall wages and you feel it much more.

[cafm]

As a graphic designer, if you do not find anything in Belfast, you may try for Bangor. Bit then you could always contract yourself out. It is a hard start, if your really got the gift of gab, you could have your own business in Belfast, but do work around the country. It is only a thought.

[keyboard komuso]

thanks cafm, yes I have a few clients that I do freelance work for but my main income is still from my 9-5 graphics job. We are very seriously thinking about checking areas outside of Freeport, like Lisbon, as the opportunities for work are probably much better near Freeport and Portland. We just don't want to live in such urban areas. Any input on the Lisbon area?

[cafm]

Either Lisbon or Lisbon Falls. You will be about 20 min. from Bath, Maine, that does alot of contracting out in the ship building indust. for the government, then in the opposite direction is Portland, Which is a very vesitile city. It is a very beautiful Country down that way and you can live close to the city and still have the small town effect. I wish you guys luck.

[Alexia319]

keyboard komuso,

My conscience would bother me if I didn't respond on this thread, although I almost let it pass. Everything you've said when you listed your reasons for wanting to move to Maine was said (almost verbatim) by my husband and myself before we moved here in 1998. We could not have been more wrong, but we've learned the hard way.

A few comments, although I could write a book:

- most hospitals in Maine are equipped to deal only with minor ailments. If you get really sick here (and now I am talking about midcoast, although we've lived near Portland) you'll find yourself in a hospital far away from home and your partner needing to make a long trip to see you. If you needed (God forbid) chemotherapy, you'd be making the trip back and forth to Bangor - and you'd be making it in winter, under conditions that you may not even be able to imagine if you haven't lived through a Maine winter. Believe me when I tell you that you don't know what it's like.

- more on winter. The roads are NOT well plowed and barely salted at all. If you have to make any sort of commute (and it's almost inevitable that you will, possibly a long one) you will do it in whiteout conditions that put your life quite literally in danger. I could direct you to fifty people known to me personally who have moved here with the assurance of Mainers that the roads are plowed. Any one of them would gladly express to you (at length) their disgust with the roads of Maine, including their deplorable and crumbling condition even when they're not ice-covered. And I won't even begin on the subject of the drunken yahoos who are driving on them and will pass you at high speed no matter what the conditions.

- Jobs are extraordinarily scarce and pay less than you could ever imagine. The rents that seem cheap to you would be cheap if you were earning what you are now, or even half of what you are now. You won't earn that in Maine. You'll be lucky to earn a quarter of what you are now making, and you will have no security whatsoever. Maine is awash with desperate-for-work artists, craftspeople, writers. There is no work for them here. Although your wife has a more traditionally practical skill, there may be only three jobs that could possibly be available to her within a 50 mile area. There is absolutely no guarantee or, indeed, even likelihood that she could get one of those jobs. If she does, she'll almost certainly be laid off at some point. Ask the people in Camden who received their MBNA reviews on Friday and were assured of a long and happy career, followed by being told to clear out their desks and go home on Monday. Maine is the last stop for companies in search of cheap labor before they decamp to the third world. Maine employers who are natives are extremely unlikely to hire you; they hire their cousins, in-laws, pals. If they do hire you, it will be for $7.00 an hour, no benefits of any kind. Experienced legal secretaries rarely make more than $10.00 an hour and most aren't employed full-time and have no benefits.

- And a word about "benefits." You may be told they're offered, but in nearly every instance you'll find that the health insurance (surely the worst in the U.S., with only one provider) covers almost nothing, costs a fortune (with little or no input from the employer) and has an enormous deductible. On Maine wages, it will be useless to you because you won't be able to pay that deductible. It's common (and I speak from experience) for employers to hire you for a full time position and then send you home (without pay) every time things slow down. Of course, they'll expect you to wait by the phone so you can come back in quickly when they want you.

- Local magazines such as the one you mentioned virtually never advertise a position of any kind. If they have any (which isn't frequent - people hold onto jobs with a death grip here because there are so few) it will go to somebody who knows somebody, is related to somebody, etc. That door is closed and, believe me, you will not pry it open. Furthermore, the pay is quite literally about a quarter of what it would be anywhere else.

- Maine natives. They are insular and inbred. Everyone is related to everyone, and they hire among their own unless that is absolutely impossible. When that's the case, you can be sure the job is utterly thankless in every possible way. Don't be taken in by the pleasantness of people who are taking your money when you're a tourist. They want you to leave that money and go home. If you move here, you fall into a different category: people "from away," who are trying to stick their noses in where they're not wanted. If you believe that, should things get really desperate, you could at least pick up something at McDonald's or Burger King, belay that notion. They won't hire you. They will, however, hire their own even from among the pool of registered sex offenders if need be, before they will hire you. My husband and I are professional people with strong resumes and years of experience; my husband used to regularly be called by headhunters with job offers. We never imagined that we could be unemployed, but that was before Maine.

- People passing through. There are four distinct groups of people in Maine. The first group, the group that keeps a low profile but comprises the Real Maine, consists of those who have lived here for generations and who are firmly entrenched in everything that matters. They run Maine and they determine how it responds to outsiders. They are, as I already said, insular. They own plumbing companies, rental houses, small stores and restaurants. They employ their family and buddies from high school with whom they grew up. With enormous effort, you may force/cajole your way in, but you will never be one of them (this is especially true if you aren't a hunter - they don't comprehend anyone who doesn't want to kill deer). The second group is tourists, who are treated well if they don't outstay their welcome. They see only the surface. The third are rich summer residents who own large homes. The locals kowtow to this group, who have money to spend and who know when to leave. The fourth group are people who went starry-eyed over the beauty of Maine, pulled up stakes and bought a bed and breakfast or packed up their easel and bought a cheap house. These people are almost without exception passing through Maine. Almost all of them (except those who have become too poor to leave) will be gone within five years. They follow a predictable pattern: they're rhapsodic at first over the beauty and the cheaper accommodations. Sadly, this is the group that will beckon to you to move here and will tell you how great it is. Almost without exception, by the time YOU get here, they will be gone. Within about two years, they've been thoroughly disillusioned, are desperately scratching to make any kind of a living, and are ready to return from whence they came - sadder, wiser, and much much poorer. Very often they leave behind a house that sits on the market for years, draining their pockets from a distance. I helped a friend who had lost everything here, including her house in bankruptcy, move the few personal belongings she had left into a u-haul. She wasn't a flake; she'd held an excellent job in a bank for 16 years, and came here (as she thought) well equipped with money and skills. At the age of 43, she had to go home and sleep on an aunt's sofa - she'd lost everything.

I could tell you much more, but I think you get the idea. One more thing, though: there was a website for a local (Belfast) newspaper that had a discussion board frequented by locals. Someone "from away" posted a letter very much like yours, saying how they'd vacationed in Belfast, thought it was beautiful, wanted to move there. They asked for advice. I didn't dare give any on the site, because this is a small place and I was known to people - there would have been repercussions that we couldn't handle because we were clinging on by a thread and could not dare offend anyone. I emailed them privately and told them the truth. I was fascinated to get an email back from them in which they said that they'd had some positive responses on the site, but they'd also had more than 50 emails saying essentially the same thing I had - for God's sake, if you care at all about your life and your future, don't come here. The emailers also stated, as I had, that they didn't dare say these things on a public site where they could be identified because they were already in enough difficulty. Enough said, and best of luck to you.

[Bydand]

Originally Posted by Alexia319

keyboard komuso,
My conscience would bother me if I didn't respond on this thread, although I almost let it pass.

You should have. There are so many inaccuracies and BS in the post I wouldn't even know where to start. Don't like it so much, leave. Pretty simple if you ask me. Maine isn't for everybody, not even some locals who are born and bred here. Lot's of us from "away" have found plenty of friends, plenty of jobs, and a whole lot in the State. I haven't seen too many "inbred" Mainers (and living in "The County" I would have the better chance).

Yes I said plenty of jobs. I could make 6 calls this afternoon and take my pick of where to go to work tomorrow from 6 different offers, so could my wife. Neither of us are from here originally. If somebody is willing to live in Maine and not try to drag their "baggage" and old way of life with them, you can be as accepted as somebody who was born here. If you try to jam your ideas of how things are "supposed to work in the real world" down their necks, you will never be accepted.

Join one day and look at the useless sewage that is being spewed already. Looks like yet another one for the ignore list because if this is your first post in the Maine forums, I don't think I want to read anymore.