The 10 Things I Learned From Living In Orlando (Tampa, Kissimmee: sex offender, homes)

[jmpowie]

This post is very helpfull. We live in NH and we are planing to move to the Orlando area this spring. We are planing to go down in Jan to look at houses and neighborhoods. The schools seem to rank good (we have a 9 and a 6yr old) it sounds like a great place to live and raise kids. I one thing that scares me is the crime. Type in sex offender and it is cazy how many come up. Can you buy a house in the 175K range and live in a safe neighborhood?

[bayou91]

Originally Posted by jmpowie

This post is very helpfull. We live in NH and we are planing to move to the Orlando area this spring. We are planing to go down in Jan to look at houses and neighborhoods. The schools seem to rank good (we have a 9 and a 6yr old) it sounds like a great place to live and raise kids. I one thing that scares me is the crime. Type in sex offender and it is cazy how many come up. Can you buy a house in the 175K range and live in a safe neighborhood?

When I lived in the central FL area we lived in a house that would probably sell right now for about $225K (just judging off of what other homes in the neighborhood have recently sold for) andddd a sex offender lived right down the street in an equally nice, if not nicer, house. Nothing bad ever happened (that I know of) while I lived there. Oh, except some car robberies (which were most likely stupid teenagers because all they took were CDs and lighters - stuff like that could happen in any neighborhood).

My theory is that because FL attracts so many people, a lot of those people are also the scum of the entire country.

[LuvOrlando]

Tolls suck!! It's the only thing I hate about Orlando.

I miss baseball games. We need a team, even if it's minor league.

Lizards never cease to be cute.

Having your own pool is the greatest thing in the world.

If you let the backyard grass die during the winter, it comes back in the spring.

Those "clinical strength" deodorants work much better than the regular ones - especially the waterproof ones, on pool days.

It's fun to decorate the outside of the house, especially the back patio.

I don't, but people use garages as another room of the house. Some use them for storage, too, and park outside. I don't know if this is a Floridian thing or a southern one. Some even do laundry in there! Me, I keep a car in there. Wacky girl, that's me.

After a few years, you do acclimate to the heat. I always had my house set at 72 degrees up north, maybe 70 in the winter. Now, if it is 73, I'm complaining that it's freezing. When I visit up north, I'm all bundled up and people say my blood has thinned, lol.

It is much easier to not gain weight when you can go outside all the time. Those winter pounds are non-existent for me now!

God did not intend for people to live in places where 4 degrees is a high! He meant for us to live in Florida (and maybe Texas. )

[Nevezan]

Originally Posted by bayou91

When I lived in the central FL area we lived in a house that would probably sell right now for about $225K (just judging off of what other homes in the neighborhood have recently sold for) andddd a sex offender lived right down the street in an equally nice, if not nicer, house. Nothing bad ever happened (that I know of) while I lived there. Oh, except some car robberies (which were most likely stupid teenagers because all they took were CDs and lighters - stuff like that could happen in any neighborhood).

My theory is that because FL attracts so many people, a lot of those people are also the scum of the entire country.

Precisely this. The more a place attracts people, the likelihood more of those people could turn out being less than stellar. On the upside, along with the flux of them comes really nice people to. It's just the sheer amount of them. It probably is really no different than other places with huge waves of immigration as well.

As bayou91 states, crime is overrated in Orlando. Yes, it's here, but most of it is contained within certain communities and among relations. Besides that, it's mostly petty theft. Just keep your doors and cars locked and exercise some common sense, and you should be able to avoid most of the problems here.

As for sex offenders, well, apparently, my neighborhood could -possibly- be housing a sex trafficker (yikes!), so, while we are keeping a look out, it's no different than it always has been: just a quiet, sleepy suburb. I see people jogging through the night and no one fears for their lives. I'm sure you can find something for 175K. Try looking into Williamsburg and Hunter's Creek in south Orlando and Winter Springs and Casselberry in north Orlando for starters. South Winter Garden/new Windermere is a great, affordable area to check out as well in West Orlando, and possibly Avalon Park in east orlando. Good luck, jmpowie!

[Nevezan]

Originally Posted by LuvOrlando

I don't, but people use garages as another room of the house. Some use them for storage, too, and park outside. I don't know if this is a Floridian thing or a southern one. Some even do laundry in there! Me, I keep a car in there. Wacky girl, that's me.

LOL. I was wondering if this was a Florida thing or not. I've noticed more and more people are using their garages as spare rooms or storage, my family doing the latter. Mind you, I've been trying to convince them to get rid of all the junk, since most of it is hoarding besides lawn equipment. I would prefer using my garage for our cars, ha ha.

Although, even with the garage wide open and hopefully a nice breeze, I can't quite fathom how people have full fledged rooms down there. I like the warm weather something mighty myself, but can we say heat trap? Geez.

[Crane's Rooster]

I think it is a Florida thing. Growing up, my garage has been used for a kitchen, home gym, repair shop, laundry room, bedroom, outdoor dining room, outdoor entertaining room, dancehall, you name it. Only in the past few years have actually parked cars in our garage, and even now when we host guest we move the cars out and set up tables.

[Natasha_DrPhillips]

Originally Posted by jmpowie

This post is very helpfull. We live in NH and we are planing to move to the Orlando area this spring. We are planing to go down in Jan to look at houses and neighborhoods. The schools seem to rank good (we have a 9 and a 6yr old) it sounds like a great place to live and raise kids. I one thing that scares me is the crime. Type in sex offender and it is cazy how many come up. Can you buy a house in the 175K range and live in a safe neighborhood?

At $175, you can get a nice house in Clermont, they have a bunch of new construction going on, and lots are generally larger.

[tricon7]

The houses in my neighborhood in Winter Springs (off Tuakawilla Road) are on average around $175k, and it's an idyllic neighborhood (and close to everything, almost).

[rogercobb]

Crime is a HUGE problem in the Orlando area and it is certainly not limited to a few bad neighborhoods. Because many of the neighborhoods have new homes, the streets and sidewalks are well maintained, and the sun is shining newcomers get a false sense of security. It doesn't fit their image of what a bad neighborhood should look like. The nice neighborhoods are huge targets for car break-ins and home invasions. Get an attack dog, a car and home security system, and perhaps some earplugs for all the noisy neighbors, barking dogs, and low flying helicopters. The Orlando Metropolitan area extends from near St Augustine across to Ocala down to Lakeland and over to Melbourne. It's ridiculous and done to skew the crime rate lower. We can now claim a beach in our Metro area. Also, to get an accurate picture of crime, do not look at the city limits of Orlando as only the decent neighborhoods are included. The city limit boundaries look like a five year old gone wild with the crayons.

[tinytrump]

Originally Posted by Crane's Rooster

This is a great thread, but let me add my own 10 things that have changed in CFL. My family moved here in the early 90s, I left for college and grad school, returned about mid 2000's. Here's what I have noticed has changed, for better or worse.

1. Population has exploded. When I was growing up here we really were a small to mid-size metro, Orange County had well less than a million residents, CFL less than 2 million, places like Avalon and Lake Nona were pastures. Today I am astonished by just how many people live here the sprawl that has comes with it. I remember when I used to think Apopka was "out there."
2. Diversity has exploded as well. I don't mean just race and ethnicity, although that has changed dramatically. Although I heard Spanish growing up it was not nearly as present as today. But today I also hear Creole, Vietnamese, Arabic, Croation, Hindi on a fairly regular basis. More noticeably, I'm not just hearing it in ethnic neighborhoods and in the tourists corridor, I'm hearing all types of languages just about everywhere I go now. The area has also gotten much more diverse age wise as well. You see alot of multi generational homes now, fewer senior communities and more young adults.
3. Crime has exploded as well. I have can not remember seeing anywhere near the amount or type of crime on our daily news as I do today. However, the crime still seems confined to the same old places as before. But the sheer volume shocks me sometimes.
4. Growth has exploded. There are some streets I travel down and just don't recognize anymore. 17-92 is almost completely changed and continues to do so everyday.
5. Downtown is alive. When I was growing up here people were still coming downtown for the nightlife but downtown was nearly dead after 5 pm. Today it's changed to the point I don't see it as the same downtown I only visited for special events at Lake Eola.
6. Traffic is HORRENDOUS. I-4 was never this bad before. It is packed just anytime of day now in the tourist area, downtown and right at the Orange/Seminole line.
7. Things are alot busier in general. There just seems to be more people, congestion, hustle and bustle every where you go. When I left things pretty died down right after dinner time. Now it seems people are out and about all times of day.
8. Politics have gotten alot more moderate. When I grew up here, Glenda Hood was doing all she could to keep Orlando a sleepy conservative little town. Today it's great, to me, to see our community has become much more progressive. We finally have some form of mass transit coming in and years back, you wouldn't even dream of the new arena, performing arts center, citrus bowl renovations, soccer stadium happening at all, much less all at once. It's great to see big events for things I agree with and disagree with.
9. "Central Florida" has been redefined. I feel like when I left Altamonte was considered a suburb and Apopka was on the outskirts. Today Altamonte is pretty much a part of the Urban Core and Apopka is an inner surburban area. Today I think of places like Mt. Dora, Clermont, Deland, Tavares the same I used to think about Apopka.
10. We are no longer a small town. Just read everything above. We are now officially a big city with big city amenities and problems. For better or worse.

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