Living in Santa Fe: Good, Bad, Ugly, Best: Want to know (Albuquerque: crime, houses)
Santa FeSanta Fe County
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I think I love Santa Fe every time we visit in our trailer, often several times a year... but visiting a place and living there could be two different things. Before I make a(nother) huge mistake, youngish retirees would super appreciate hearing the nitty-gritty from locals: Things like: How hot for how long are the summers? is A/C a must? (I do hate the heat) On average do you get a lot of snow? Bugs..ugh, lots or not much? esp dreaded ROACHES?? snakes, coyotes, yeah-- what about pocket gophers? garden nightmares? Internet availability pretty good? (ie, Hughes.net not necessary if withing 10 miles of Santa fe?) Is buying true adobe nothing but maintenance? Flat roof or pitched? medical/dental availability adequate? Any toxic areas to avoid (do you know about Durango and uranium?) Water quality? and yes, crime and homeless situation, which is everywhere I know. I know this is an insane amount of questions, and answers would depend entirely on specific neighborhoods (thinking east side), but don't know how else to find the truth -- realtors always paint such a rosy picture. One thing is certain: the food can't be beat!! Thank you in advance to any and everyone who chooses to respond to any or all points. Much appreciated!!
I live in Los Alamos, which is close (45min), so I just can't comment on some of your questions.
I can say that the weather is generally fantastic though. I don't think the snow is as heavy as other parts of the US but you might (rarely) have storms that bring as much as a foot. The big difference is that here, we have intensely sunny days year round. and most of the snow melts within a day or two. Friends have complained about the (lack of) plowing in SF but I do not know myself.
Your perspective will determine if it is hot or not. I came from Austin, TX so it isn't that hot to me. Plus it is very dry here so you can avoid AC by using a swamp cooler.
I don't know if I saw any beetles (aside from ladybugs) before moving to NM but I have seen plenty since. There are lots of spiders here too. However, the mosquito population is MUCH lower here than Austin.
I am going to give you more general answers than you want, but here goes. We moved here over a year ago, so my perspective is from someone who rolled in recently, but long enough ago to have some observations. We visited Santa Fe every couple of years for the 16 years prior to that. Previously we lived for ten years in Asheville, NC. In that time we saw a very pleasant, similar-sized area that exploded and destroyed its character and livability. Before that we lived in a much larger, congested area (DC area), and I have lived in relatively large metropolitan areas all my life prior to Asheville. So it is not my first rodeo with relocating to a new area (5th, actually). I mention this stuff only to give you my point of reference.
The move has been pretty much what I expected. I do not expect anywhere to be a Garden of Eden. Every place is a mixture of good, bad, and downright ugly (exactly as your title says). As is said, the number one cause of disappointments is unrealistic expectations. “Exactly what I expected” does not sound sexy, but I am a realist so it is actually quite a compliment.
First, Santa Fe is in a desert (a real no joke moment there). That means dust (yes, it will get on the furniture) and desert wild life. And it can be windy. We live in Eldorado, and coyotes are common sights (and sounds). There are snakes, pack rats, ravens galore, lizards, beetles, centipedes, spiders, and everything one would expect from a 7,000 foot elevation desert. My latest adversary has been gophers, and I feel like Bill Murray less the explosives. All these things are part of the character of the place, so take it or leave it at that.
Second, the weather is basically gorgeous, but I have always liked the desert southwest climate. There is an entire thread on what constitutes hot, and it boils down to your own definition of hot and uncomfortable. I lived in Phoenix for a year, and my observation was even at 120, if one got out of the sun it was not uncomfortable because of single-digit humidity. I think it was in the 90s for a total of two weeks here this summer (not consecutively), but I did not find it uncomfortable. Again, it feels hot if you are in the sun. Generally, the weather pattern that causes that heat also lowers the humidity to the range of 8-15%. Compare that to 90-degrees and 40-percent plus humidity (sometimes much more). Personally, I’ll take the dry heat.
You will probably want some sort of cooling/AC. We have two evaporative coolers (swamp coolers) that work quite well except on days when the humidity rises. We had split AC units installed in two rooms, one that sits on the SW corner of the house and did not get much draft from the nearest evaporative cooler but certainly got a lot of sun, and one in a room off the garage that had no cooling. I also bought a portable AC unit that can be wheeled around, as needed (generally to a guest bedroom between the SW corner room and the isolated room, and my motivation was to stop Mrs. Mule from complaining). The room is not used enough to justify a more permanent solution. Mrs. Mule is far more temperature sensitive than I.
Snow comes and goes. Even if we get a few inches, between the sun and the low humidity it is usually gone or passable by the afternoon after it hits.
Third, the subject of dangerous areas. My view is certainly shaped by my perspective (I’ve lived near enough to East St. Louis and east Oakland to have driven through them more than once). I am sure there are areas where you do not want to live, but I don’t know enough to identify them without being in them. I have seen the thread railing on how bad the crime is, but I can’t say that I feel or sense it. Keep in mind I’ve lived in some bigger places with some sketchy and truly dangerous areas with potential for someone to encounter crime randomly at almost any time. My “city upbringing” shows. I am always aware of my surroundings and who is around. I’ve had people ask me if I was a cop (the answer is no), so I may not be a good lab rat to determine how good or bad it is because I apparently have some “air about me.”
As far as internet, we have Comcast (Xfinity). The speed here is good (they say 100 mb/s, I think, my testing utility clocks it at closer to 125 consistently), although I think it drops off for a few seconds here and there more frequently than I would like. We both work out of home offices, so internet availability is a must. My router will handle two internet connections, and I have not seen a need to subscribe to a backup (probably DSL) because the outages or too short-lived to trigger a temporary switchover.
Another issue you did not mention is reliability of people who you call to do work. It is not perfect. Most of the people I’ve dealt with either showed up as I expected or let me know of a problem ahead of time (sometimes just before the appointment time, but they were hung up on the preceding job which happens). I’ve heard complaints about it being a major problem, but from our perspective, it is significantly better than our previous location, where one guy kept busy with the slogan “we show up.”
One final note, as unlikely as it may be. The DMV (here called the MVD) was an absolute unexpected pleasure to deal with. We both got new licenses, registered one car (would have done two but only had one with us), registered to vote, and did some preliminary work for the second car in 90 minutes….including a 20-minute rain delay where it was pouring and the guy could not get out to verify the VIN number on our car. And we were far from the only ones there. I am used to that taking three trips and a combined six hours or so.
You'll also have to come to terms with stucco (most likely), flat roof maintenance (most likely), desert soil, and tumbleweeds.
The various threads Poncho posted should provide some specific answers.
Santa Fe is not for everybody. Living both in a desert and at 7,000 feet both require some adaptation, and some people just aren’t willing to do that (although they think they are going in). As compared to Asheville, I would say Santa Fe has a solid sense of “what it is” as compared to trying to be all things for all people. There is a lot to do here, both outdoors and various activities. So much my warning to Mrs. Mule was to be careful not to “flame out” trying to do it all in the first year (not that she has listened, but that is not unusual). Many of those things spawn from the Native American and Hispanic culture that gives the place its history and character, so those are not going to necessarily be for everyone, either. They are a good fit for us.
We did not make this move on a whim, but as I said, our experience here has been pretty much exactly what we expected. Not a lot seems to go that way these days, so we are happy.
I think I love Santa Fe every time we visit in our trailer, often several times a year... but visiting a place and living there could be two different things. Before I make a(nother) huge mistake, youngish retirees would super appreciate hearing the nitty-gritty from locals: Things like: How hot for how long are the summers? is A/C a must? (I do hate the heat) On average do you get a lot of snow? Bugs..ugh, lots or not much? esp dreaded ROACHES?? snakes, coyotes, yeah-- what about pocket gophers? garden nightmares? Internet availability pretty good? (ie, Hughes.net not necessary if withing 10 miles of Santa fe?) Is buying true adobe nothing but maintenance? Flat roof or pitched? medical/dental availability adequate? Any toxic areas to avoid (do you know about Durango and uranium?) Water quality? and yes, crime and homeless situation, which is everywhere I know. I know this is an insane amount of questions, and answers would depend entirely on specific neighborhoods (thinking east side), but don't know how else to find the truth -- realtors always paint such a rosy picture. One thing is certain: the food can't be beat!! Thank you in advance to any and everyone who chooses to respond to any or all points. Much appreciated!!
Summers are hot for 3 months, pretty much, tho this summer was surprisingly tolerable, an anomaly, while the Pacific NW scorched. Mid-to-high 80's & 90's for roughly 3 months or so. One summer, it was 5 months. A/C is a must, IMO. You can get by on swamp cooling, but on those days (which can be several in a row, maybe even 1 week at a time, now & then in mid-summer), swamp won't be enough. If you buy a house with a basement, then swamp would be enough, and you could sleep in the basement with a fan & do ok, on the hot or muggy days.
--Gophers--yes. Definitely. Also little desert bunnies. Mice. (They potentially carry plague) A good pest control guy is a good contact to have. The best one is based in Los Alamos, and has plenty of clients in SF.
--Roaches? Haven't seen any. I've been here over 10 years.
--Snakes? Ditto, at least in the city. Some of the rural communities have "snake alert" training classes.
--Adobe doesn't require significantly more maintenance than anything else, IME.
Depending on where you buy, you won't have a choice re: pitched roof or flat. The city mandates traditional-style architecture within a certain radius of downtown. If you're outside that radius, you can have a pitched roof, which is useful when it rains, and it sloughs off snowmelt more easily, too.
--Snow--very little snow, now. Rarely snows, and when it does, it's only an inch or 2, compared to big dumps of it that you needed serious snowboots to walk around in. Winters are much milder now, which means driving is safer.
--Toxicity--haha! Uranium? Have we heard about Durango? Me, personally--no. We don't need to hear about other places. Uranium occurs naturally in the ground all around here. Your locally-grown vegetables will have uranium in them. Probably your roses will. If you're worried about it, you can get a heavy-metal detox formula from one of the local doctors, take the formula (a few drops daily), get tested before beginning, and during the protocol, and you can get rid of it, if there's a significant accumulation after a few years. It's easy.
--Safe neighborhoods. There are some nabes to avoid. When you get ready to move here & buy, let us know. Oh, and one reason to get A/C instead of swamp is that A/C allows you to keep all the windows closed. People won't have easy access to your home, that way.
The good: lots of arts events: SF has its own symphony & a chamber orchestra. Also opera. Art galleries, art fairs, weekend art markets that clog the town with tourists, art art art. There are hiking trails around the edges of town. Albuquerque also has a symphony. Santa Fe is a BIG film town; there are several independent film houses. and there are several film festivals throughout the year. There was a film school until recently. I'm not sure what will happen to the film school, but they're still operating their own theater, and still have a film schedule. If you like Native American & Indigenous cultures films, Buddhist (Tibetan) films, or Jewish films, you're in luck. If you're more into Scandinavian film, move to Seattle.
There are some good restaurants in town, but people complain that the town shuts down by about 9:00 p.m. People entertain themselves with dinner parties, instead of going out for nightlife.
And speaking of roses, this is a climate roses THRIVE in! I was astonished! They're very happy here, and there are no aphid infestations, no leaf mold issues. Happy roses! This needs to be seen to be believed.
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If you're worried about it, you can get a heavy-metal detox formula from one of the local doctors, take the formula (a few drops daily), get tested before beginning, and during the protocol, and you can get rid of it, if there's a significant accumulation after a few years. It's easy.
