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Hi there! We are a family of 5 considering moving back to CA, specifically Temecula. We currently live in Gilbert, AZ for the last 3 years and before that, we lived in the OC for 5 years. I was born/raised in the OC while my husband is from Detroit. We have 3 small kids ages 2, 6, 8 so now our main concern is not only safety but schools.
I’m curious to hear from anyone who has any insight about the summer heat and Scorpions - if any?
We are contemplating the move due to the fact that our kids are stuck indoors all summer long and the heat just drains us all. Wondering how the heat in Temecula compares? From what I see, temps seem to fall in the evenings/night? Here in AZ it’s pretty common to be high 90s at 2am so the AC is our friend 24/7.
As far as scorpions, I just can’t seem to deal with it. I’ve cut my fair share of them in half with scissors but always being worried about my kids going out barefoot (or at home for that matter) is getting old. Wondering if they are super common in Temecula??
I’ve read that Temecula is very family friendly and Gilbert is the same — but this heat is
Scorpions are a complete NON-factor anywhere near Temecula. Temecula is family friendly, but extremely crowded. The infrastructure sucks. The schools are good, but drop off and pick up is hell. Traffic is horrible and buses for students are infrequently used and aren’t free. Temecula drivers... no bueno.
Temecula is the most debt ridden city in all of California. I believe this say a bit about how desperate the residents are to “appear” to be wealthy/trendy, as most of this debt is car debt or credit card.
Full disclosure: I’ve lived here since 90 and we are trying to leave. It’s still a great place for being in CA, but I believe it was much better in the early/quieter days.
Scorpions are a complete NON-factor anywhere near Temecula. Temecula is family friendly, but extremely crowded. The infrastructure sucks. The schools are good, but drop off and pick up is hell. Traffic is horrible and buses for students are infrequently used and aren’t free. Temecula drivers... no bueno.
Temecula is the most debt ridden city in all of California. I believe this say a bit about how desperate the residents are to “appear” to be wealthy/trendy, as most of this debt is car debt or credit card.
Full disclosure: I’ve lived here since 90 and we are trying to leave. It’s still a great place for being in CA, but I believe it was much better in the early/quieter days.
Good luck!
Thanks so much for your response! Arizona has a coined term “$30,000 millionaires” so the keeping up with the Jones’s is very much alive here as well.
Our concern is more in the fact that we want to be friendly with neighbors. In AZ, all neighbors basically come home, pull into their garage and shut the door as fast as possible. When they leave, it’s the same thing. It may have to do with the fact that our neighborhood is 90% Mormon and since we are not, and don’t show up at their church, we apparently don’t exist in their minds. It’s quite sad, really. I never experienced this in all my years growing up in CA.
Hoping our next move our kids will be able to go outside during the summer and neighbors will acknowledge us any time they see us, even if it’s flipping us off - just something!
Heat is much more tolerable then Gilbert. There are typically 2 -3 weeks a year where its really bad. Yesterday was 100 but currently at 7am its 63. we ran our AC for the afternoon yesterday and last night we put on the whole house fan and its 69f inside the house. The 2-3 weeks out of the summer where its really hot it just doesnt cool off at night. It still gets down to the low 70's even on those nights.
Schools are great. Great Oak High school is one of the best in all of Riverside county and top 200 in the state of Ca.
Bugs are not bad, you get some black and brown widows but nothing major. I have never seen a Scorpion in the 10 years I have lived here.
The debt one is new to me but I can see how it holds true. Lots of nice 60k SUVs etc driving around here.
Market is up for home buying. You are looking at a minimum of 450k for a smaller single family home.
Heat is much more tolerable then Gilbert. There are typically 2 -3 weeks a year where its really bad. Yesterday was 100 but currently at 7am its 63. we ran our AC for the afternoon yesterday and last night we put on the whole house fan and its 69f inside the house. The 2-3 weeks out of the summer where its really hot it just doesnt cool off at night. It still gets down to the low 70's even on those nights.
Schools are great. Great Oak High school is one of the best in all of Riverside county and top 200 in the state of Ca.
Bugs are not bad, you get some black and brown widows but nothing major. I have never seen a Scorpion in the 10 years I have lived here.
The debt one is new to me but I can see how it holds true. Lots of nice 60k SUVs etc driving around here.
Market is up for home buying. You are looking at a minimum of 450k for a smaller single family home.
Thanks so much! Very helpful information. We are on month 4 of nothing lower than 89 at night, but that’s expected for AZ. We used to live in Huntington Beach so we have had quite the variety in weather in the last 10 years.
We are looking at elementary & preschools as we have a 2nd grader, Kindergartener and a 2 year old. I see some really good schools all throughout Temecula — are there any STEM based elementary schools or charter schools? My kids currently go to a charter STEM school that’s very hands on and has uniforms (which is amazing for us).
450k sounds pretty good for CA. Currently in Gilbert and the outskirts, anything under $400k is either crappy, small or snatched up in a day. The market here has skyrocketed and small single family home prices are starting to mimic CA. It’s a little bizarre to pay that much for a desert home but it is what it is. I am a realtor here so it doesn’t bother my one bit haha
Temecula was a rural community back in the 90s. Today it's a suburb / exurb. If you expect it to be a rural community, the traffic is horrendous to you and the city feels crowded. If treating as a suburb, it is the same as everywhere in SoCal. We moved here 4 years ago. Weather is tolerable. Because of the rainbow breeze, Temecula, especially the south side, gets cold in the evening. Yesterday's high hit 100F yesterday, and we woke with 62F in the morning. The 35F-40F temperature swing is pretty normal here. At least kids go outside early in the morning and in the evening.
Your husband's work location is an important factor. If he has to commute to San Diego daily during the rush hours, it gets old quickly.
Temecula was a rural community back in the 90s. Today it's a suburb / exurb. If you expect it to be a rural community, the traffic is horrendous to you and the city feels crowded. If treating as a suburb, it is the same as everywhere in SoCal. We moved here 4 years ago. Weather is tolerable. Because of the rainbow breeze, Temecula, especially the south side, gets cold in the evening. Yesterday's high hit 100F yesterday, and we woke with 62F in the morning. The 35F-40F temperature swing is pretty normal here. At least kids go outside early in the morning and in the evening.
Your husband's work location is an important factor. If he has to commute to San Diego daily during the rush hours, it gets old quickly.
Thank you for the info! We definitely treat it as a suburb. We are used to congested neighborhoods — AZ is starting this weird trend where homes are basically built one in top of the other, just like townhouses, but are still considered single family. I guess no one wants to maintain their backyard due to the heat.
Our kids have adapted to the heat so they’ll go to the park when it’s ofer 100 BUT I feel bad and they don’t last long out there. They end up going in the early morning (8am) when it’s a decent 91. I work from home so summers end up feeling extremely long when they’re cooped up indoors.
Your temp drop sounds heavenly! We would do anything for night lower temps right about now!
My husband is in the process of still looking around for work so our exact location is still up in the air. But being an avid location researcher I tend to find out as much as possible before we even get anything lined up. I did see large companies such as Abbott & Medline are located there, which would be ideal. He has no desire to commute for work, so we will always try to live as near as possible.
In 2012 I moved to Temecula (Redhawk) from Gilbert (Ashland Ranch). My home in Gilbert was scorpion-infested -- always shook my shoes before putting them on, dog was bitten on a nighttime walk once, never left piles of clothes on the floor or one would take up residence in it. UGH! More than once I woke up and saw one on the bedroom ceiling over my head. So scorpions were the dealbreaker for me (Arpaio was a huge contributing factor). And the heat. So I had the same concerns you've mentioned, except the schools were important to me mostly in how they affect home values. So, my thoughts on these three concerns:
1) No scrorpions here. Such a relief. Plenty of black widows and tons of ants. Oh, also, the bees leave me alone here! The africanized ones are uncommon here. I've heard Pendleton has scorpions, but no one I know has ever seen one in Temecula. Rattlesnakes, yes.
2) The heat. I came to Temecula in 2011 to househunt, and happened to hit a heatwave where it was over 100 for a solid week. I concluded it would be too hot here and started looking in Oceanside instead. In the end, I bought in Temecula for the value -- more yard and house for less money. Redhawk has a lot of what I liked about Gilbert. I get the afternoon breeze up the Rainbow Gap, and seldom turn on my A/C -- 99% of that time I can turn it off at sunset. So I still grumble about the heat, but in Gilbert we turned AC on in April and off at Halloween, so it's definitely not as bad. The shade makes a big difference. On the bright side, we have the advantage of getting very little of the May Gray and June Gloom and winters are not as cold here as Gilbert, IMO.
3) Schools. They're reportedly very good here. I live up the street from Great Oak which is an IB school with a great reputation and lots of extracurricular activities. I see the cross country runners every day. The elementary and middle schools are walking distance. There's a line of cars in front of my house when school gets out because apparently nobody but nobody takes a school bus around here. I'm not sure I've even seen any schoolbuses at the high school.
Other thoughts: My neighborhood is terrific. It's filled with dogwalkers like me and views of the mountains on all sides. The neighbors are friendly (the Mormons in Gilbert were great neighbors and town council members, but yeah, not particularly welcoming of me). I occasionally see the pairs of kids here on their bikes wearing white short-sleeved button down shirts with ties, and figure them for proselytizing mormons, but very rarely, not nearly so often as in Gilbert. That said, Temecula is very religious (the bible belt of SoCal, I've heard) and that is a problem for me -- but others find that refreshing. I put up a sign and eventually they quit ringing my doorbell. If you're a churchgoer you'll find lots of company here.
I miss the excellent HAZMAT recycling in Gilbert. And monthly bulk pickup days for garbage, if they still do that. Temecula's a bit behind on that, but it's good enough. Temecula did recently add composting to the green waste pickup.
I miss the biking in Gilbert!! Temecula has a handful of hit-or-miss bike lanes, but a lot of the routes have no way to get there and no parking once you're there. And it just blows my mind that there are no bike lanes on the street in front of Great Oak High School.
Traffic is definitely worse here (probably twice as bad as downtown Phoenix) which tends to make the drivers impatient and rude. There also seems to be a real obsession with loud cars and motorcycles, which I didn't notice in Gilbert, but others probably tune that out better than I do.
Old Town Temecula and Old Town Gilbert seem very similar to me.
On balance, Temecula is beautiful and has much to recommend it. It's really very similar to Gilbert which is probably a big part of what attracted me here.
My husband is in the process of still looking around for work so our exact location is still up in the air. But being an avid location researcher I tend to find out as much as possible before we even get anything lined up. I did see large companies such as Abbott & Medline are located there, which would be ideal. He has no desire to commute for work, so we will always try to live as near as possible.
That might be tough especially if he is looking for a six-figure salary. Most such jobs are in San Diego.
It is a great town. Especially for a family with small kids. Lots of activities, good schools, and as far as neighbors go; it depends. If yours aren't congenial, you can still make great connections based on your hobbies and with parents of your kids' school friends.
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