Moving To Tampa? (apartments, rentals, hotel)

[ksplitt]

planning on moving to tampa in may, am 62 yr. old painter and craigslist shows quite a few jobs. moving from 'cranky yankee' NH, painted in charleston for 6 mos., seemed like 6 yrs....whew! i know the south is NOT new england, but HOW IS GREATER TAMPA AREA? plan on staying at 'suburban extented stay hotel' in tampa, (they have free internet in room), i can check out furnished apts./studios. just want to work, come home, read and write, be left the hell alone. problem with gangbangers and their 'initiations', traffic jams all the time? not worried about cheap labor, i do quality detail work. my questions are NOT a slam to your area, just want 'reality', so don't chastise me for being 'insensitive'. think of me as the old man on 'frasier', without the bullet to the hip...so far. thanks for all info.

[cjtex23]

Cranky yankee is funny! I lived in New England for most of my life and really think it gets a bad rap. Although other places may be nicer on the "surface", people really aren't any different anywhere else....at least not as far as I've experienced. I can't help you too much on where to find a place, other than to look on places like move.com, apartments.com, yahoo.com, craigslist.com, rent.com, etc. There are plenty of places that post "for rent" signs outside their places, so you might want to spend a little time driving around the neighborhoods where you think you'll like to live (people on here are a great help with that) and make calls to private rentals accordingly. And I understand the wanting to be left alone.....all the more power to ya. Welcome.

[cjtex23]

OH.....and I feel at "home" in Tampa...and having lived most of my life in New England, I think you'll see the same....it's a melting pot....great food, great people.