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Cool. I need to get me one of those. Thanks! Do they make something that tells me if my wife has left the back door unlocked after letting the dog out.
If you go this route, be careful. We had an alarm system installed in our house in Chicago "just in case." It automatically called the alarm company, but sometimes sent out first responders depending on the type of call. In our thirteen years in that house, EVERY call was a false alarm. It was a great "peace of mind" but it's very easy to forget that it's there and opening up a door that isn't on the delay will get cops, guns blazing, surrounding your property! I'm grateful we never had a legit alarm but it gets old racing to the panel to disengage it in time.
Cool. I need to get me one of those. Thanks! Do they make something that tells me if my wife has left the back door unlocked after letting the dog out.
Here's a link for the product that I own. Tilt sensor.
Overall this area feels very safe to me. I live in Cary and moved here from the Chicago suburbs. I also lived for a time in a very nice village in Surrey, England. There is really not much crime in Cary. I never feel unsafe here at all. There are some sort of sketchy areas in Durham and Raleigh, but overall I think it's very easy to avoid most trouble if you want to. As a prior poster mentioned a great majority of the crime here happens between people who know each other or who are involved in some way with drugs.
I moved here from a Chicago suburb as well. I currently live in Apex. I hate to admit it, but I've forgotten to lock my car and vehicle numerous times in the past four years. My kiddos also leave the garage open sometimes. One time, a neighbor saw me driving off and came over to shut the garage for me. I have only been to Durham a handful of times because the kids' dentist is there (yes, there are closer pediatric dentist but my son needed major surgery when he was a toddler and she was the best pediatric surgeon I could find). I can't say that I felt scared or wary when driving through Durham or stopping somewhere for lunch after an appointment. I agree with the poster above me in that it's like most places with a seemingly high crime rate - pockets of unsavory behavior mostly between known criminals or domestic issues.
I don't know if you were serious when asking if people had guns in their homes for break-ins, but I have never experienced a break-in here or in the Chicagoland area and I don't know anybody who has either.
You are obsessed with guns. The area is very safe...even Durham...and no we do not have shoot outs in the street.
No, she is not obsessed with guns. She lives some place that does not have a gun culture and when you watch the news about the US many of the stories are about gun crimes. I lived abroad and when you are looking from the outside in, it does seem quite frightening how many people in the US say they "need" a gun. Also, when you have small children, it is disturbing to hear about so many children dying from guns in the country.
No, she is not obsessed with guns. She lives some place that does not have a gun culture and when you watch the news about the US many of the stories are about gun crimes. I lived abroad and when you are looking from the outside in, it does seem quite frightening how many people in the US say they "need" a gun. Also, when you have small children, it is disturbing to hear about so many children dying from guns in the country.
She's posted before...and been told that guns are really a non-issue and that the area is very safe. I am not sure what the OP expects....to be told how horrible place this is and you take your life into you own hands each time you go out to dinner?
Please could somebody explain why the crime indexes on neighbrhood scout don't really show this very low crime rate. Cary has a good index, Chapel Hill ok but Raleigh not good at all and Durham very bad.
Don't know about neighborhood scout specifically, but if it's using the same crime statistics as this website (I assume it is), keep in mind that with Raleigh and Durham, you're looking at crime statistics across an entire city. I imagine that the crime statistics for all of London are a lot higher than the statistics for your little suburb, and it's the same here. Poor neighborhoods have more crime. Better neighborhoods have less. Raleigh and Durham are both fairly decent-sized cities, so they run the gamut from poor to rich.
I know that looks can be deceiving but I drive through the "ghetto" of South Raleigh every day, and it's a lot nicer than the ghettos in Boston, New York or Chicago (cleaner, almost no graffiti, very few completely dilapidated buildings, etc.). Yes there is gang activity, yes there are drug dealers, yes there are occasional shootings, but overall, my general impression (having lived in Boston and spent time in the other two) is that the crime is nowhere near as bad as in those other cities. And not to be completely callous, but as is the case in those other cities, the gang-related crime in poor neighborhoods rarely affects people who live outside those neighborhoods. That's not to say that "those people" don't matter or anything like that, but just that crime in one part of Raleigh or Durham shouldn't prevent you from considering a home in a different part of one of those cities.
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And why the huge difference between Durham and Cary - they are not that far apart and also Raleigh - Cary not that far apart so I would have thought more similar crime rate?
Durham and Raleigh are cities. Cary is a (huge) suburb. The median household income in Cary is almost double that of Durham.
But even in Durham, there are plenty of nice neighborhoods. I haven't spent a whole lot of time there myself (only moved here last summer) but have read plenty of posts on these boards from people who are perfectly happy to raise their kids there.
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