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Theres plenty of decent areas, but plenty of areas to avoid.
What do you specifically need.......as well as want.......out of an apartment? Dont be afraid to "want" certain qualities. Location? Price Range? Style? etc.....?
Depends on what you're looking for in an apartment. Do you want to live in the city or the suburbs? Within the city there are some nice areas. I've heard Old Orchard is a nice clean area. I also think the Old West End (up and coming Victorian era neighborhood) or Downtown might offer a nice urban lifestyle for you.
I am thinking of moving to Toledo in a few weeks and would like to know where a nice apartment for a 52 year old female might be found. I am a nurse and am alittle nervous about getting into the wrong area.
If you end up moving here you'd be wise to consider living in one of the surrounding communities. Sylvania, Sylvania Twp., Maumee, Perrysburg, etc.
I grew up on the east side and lived there for the first 18 years of my life, and 9 more after I completed my military service in 1990. Moved away in '99 and came back in 2007 due to aging parents. I've lived on the west side of the city since moving back. So I know a little about the city.
If you decide you definitely want to live in the city I'd suggest the west side of town, but I'd recommend seriously considering one of the surrounding communities instead. Our elected leaders see the citizens as cash cows. Many red light/speed cameras, and they like adding taxes on homeowners. As a renter you obviously wouldn't be paying property taxes directly to the city, but would be indirectly with your rent.
I'd also suggest seeing if you can get set up with a nursing job before you move. When my sister finished nursing school three or four years ago, she had a tough time finding a job, and ended up finding one in Bowling Green. Most places told her they had a hiring freeze, or no job openings. I'm guessing it would be easier to find a nursing job if you have experience, which it sounds like you do.
If you end up at St. Charles, that is located in Oregon, which borders east Toledo. Oregon might be ok to live in, depending on which apartment complex you moved into. When I lived on the east side during the 90's that's where I did my shopping. A girl I used to work with who lived in Oregon did mention some problems with police officers abusing their power, and another lady I worked with had a former boyfriend who was an Oregon police officer who would stop her and harrass her while he was on duty. I have no idea if they've cleaned up their act since the 90's, but Oregon itself seemed a decent place to live at the time.
You didn't mention, or I didn't notice, where you are moving from. Winter weather can be a challenge to drive through sometimes.
Personally, I would stay away from the inner city, east side, and at least some parts of the south side. I believe the northeast part of town might be good to stay away from, but I don't know as much about that area.
I am thinking of moving to Toledo in a few weeks and would like to know where a nice apartment for a 52 year old female might be found. I am a nurse and am alittle nervous about getting into the wrong area.
I'm not sure where you'll be working and how much you want to spend, but my spouse (who works in Toledo while I maintain the family home and my job in WV) has been happy at Heatherwick House on the edge of Old Orchard. The laundry facilities aren't the greatest (the dryers take forever), but the building is secure, the landlord gets to repairs very quickly, and the neighborhood is excellent--close to UT, Toledo Hospital, the interstate, parks, and what I would consider all major shopping. There are other buildings on the same block, mostly built in the Sixties, and older buildings with more character on the other side of Monroe, which also seems a perfectly safe neighborhood. We walk all over the area, including on errands. (Yes, I've fallen in love with Toledo, at least as a weekend home.)
Thank-You all for posting! I am heading for Toledo today to take a look around. I am planning to stay away from the North and East sides of Toledo.
One of you inquired as to where I am from, I am from Northwest Ohio just a few miles east of Indiana.
If you are going to be living alone, I would find something in Perrysburg, Maumee, Sylvania, or outer-lying Oregon, or Bedford Twp., Michigan, if you don't mind moving to another state and changing your driver's license, car insurance, etc.
My husband and I own rental property in west Toledo, specifically in the Trilby neighborhood around the intersection of Secor Rd. and Alexis Rd. This used to be a great family neighborhood, but it has gotten a bit sketchy in recent years. Not terribly dangerous, but not what it was either. If I was a single woman, I would feel better living outside the city of Toledo. There are some beautiful apartments in the suburbs, and they would be a lot safer than anywhere in the city proper.
I don't know if you've secured a job yet or not, but if not, and if you have experience and can find a job and want to work in an inpatient setting, I would recommend Flower Hospital in Sylvania, Bay Park Hospital in Oregon, or St. Luke's Hospital in Maumee. St. Anne's Hospital in west Toledo would probably feel pretty safe too, as it's in a busy area and has a smaller, well-lit feel to it. I am also a nurse and I used to work at Toledo Hospital. I would not recommend it if you are going to be working nights at all. That part of the city is much rougher than it used to be as well, and the parking garage can feel very dark and menacing, in spite of all the security cameras. I would avoid St. V's at all costs if you are going to work nights at all, and be very cautious during the day.
Having lived in and around Toledo my entire life, I stand by what I said: if I was a single woman moving to the area, especially from a rural area like she is used to, I would stick with the suburbs.
If suburbinization is killing Toledo, there is a good reason why it is. There are very few areas within the city proper where I, a native, would feel safe coming and going at any time of the night or day as a single, middle-aged woman. Sorry, but that's the reality and the main reason why so many people move to the suburbs. I am curious as to where the "many" nice areas that are actually within the city limits of Toledo are. About the only place I would feel truly safe would probably be in the area along the river that abuts Maumee. West Toledo around the mall is no longer as safe as it used to be, because when a city only has one mall, it tends to attract all of the unsavory elements to the area as well as the more affluent. There have been many, many incidents at Westfield Franklin Park Mall and the surrounding area that make it a less than optimal area for a single woman to live in. Old Orchard is beautiful but crime is up there too. Read the crime reports in the Toledo Blade on any given day and you will see that crime has increased in even the traditionally "safe" neighborhoods of Toledo. We lived in what was once a very safe, family neighborhood in Toledo, Library Village, back in the mid-nineties, but I wouldn't want to live there now. It has gone from a place where you would want to raise your kids to a place full of transient rentals, and crime there is now a common occurrence.
Toledo is a great city in a lot of ways, but if they cannot get a handle on the crime and decline, why would anyone who works hard for their money and wants to feel safe not choose to live in the suburbs? If the city is serious about attracting new people, they need to get serious about turning the current trends around. Sure, places like the Old West End and Westmoreland look cool, but what good is architecture when you aren't safe in your own driveway?
Last edited by canudigit; 07-10-2012 at 10:28 AM..
I think you are seriously overreacting to the crime statistics in Toledo. I live in Pittsburgh, where the murder rate per population count is much higher, and nobody is scared to live in the city here. Overall, Toledo is one of the safer cities, as far as homicide rates go. Compare the crime statistics of Toledo to Cleveland or Youngstown, and I know families who live in the nice areas of those cities without complaint. Not saying there aren't areas of questionable safety in Toledo, but to assume that you are not safe in the city is a Chicken Little "the sky is falling" attitude. I would assume paranoid residents like yourself are the reason people have left the city for the suburbs. The city can only improve when people shed baseless fear and choose to live in, have pride in, and believe in their beautiful city. Fear is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
As I said, I have lived in or around Toledo all of my life. We currently own rental property there, which we work very hard to maintain. It is in a "good" neighborhood, at least as neighborhoods in Toledo go, the Trilby neighborhood in northwest Toledo. You probably don't know where that is, but people who are actually familiar with Toledo do. We have been vandalized, cussed by people cutting through our private yard to get to a nearby store, and had crimes committed against our tenants on our property. When one of our tenants, a lady in her late 70s, had her car stolen from the parking lot in broad daylight, it took the Toledo police over three hours to get there to file a report. When they finally arrived, they said (with straight faces) that they don't have time for "petty" crime such as that. Really? Auto theft is a "petty crime"? Wow. I mean, I get it that it's not homicide, but it isn't exactly shoplifting either, and taxpaying citizens who actually pay the salaries of these folks deserve a whole lot better than that!
As I mentioned, we lived in what we thought was a decent family neighborhood in Toledo back in the mid-1990s. We worked hard, paid our taxes, and attended neighborhood watch meetings. We were the kind of people that any city would want to retain, the kind of people that make cities strong from within. One day, the grandson of the lady who lived across the street from us began living in his car on the street in front of our house and dealing drugs out of his trunk. We had small children at the time and were obviously not happy after this had been going on for several days and we realized what was going on. This guy literally lived in his car, as in, sat in the car 24/7 and gave menacing looks to anyone who dared to look at him. Here's the upshot, though: when we called the TPD to take care of this problem, they told us that they couldn't do anything because he was living in the car on public property. So everytime I wanted to go outside in our front yard, on our property that we worked hard to pay for and pay taxes to the city of Toledo for, my kids and I had to be mere yards from a creepy drug dealer living on the street directly in front of our house in his car. Home invasions also began to happen in our neighborhood routinely at about that time as well.
Do you have small kids? I seem to remember from other posts here on C-D that you are a young, single man, maybe a bit idealistic. That's the only reason I can think of why you would call someone "paranoid" and accuse them of possessing "baseless" (LOL!!!!) fear for wanting to raise their kids in a safe place and wanting to pay their hard earned taxes in a place where the police actually value the safety of the citizens. So we didn't want our three year old son and year old daughter to grow up in an area where burglaries and blatant drug dealing were happening...our bad!!??? Are you even aware that Toledo recently closed a satellite police substation in a neighborhood that was once a safe, solid area but is now just another area on the brink of severe decline? Probably not, but those of us who actually know the area know this and just scratch our heads and wonder what is happening to this once proud city.
Maybe you would be better suited to comment on the current state of affairs in Toledo after you have lived there sometime. In the meantime, I'm sure there are many people over on the Pittsburgh forum who would value your knowledgable comments on that city, since it is where you actually live and probably have some measure of expertise on.
My goal here was simply to help guide a single, middle-aged female on safe places to live in an area that I am extremely personally familiar with. I am not going to argue about this with someone who isn't even living in the area, and therefore I won't be commenting on this topic any further. Have a nice day.
Last edited by canudigit; 07-11-2012 at 12:42 PM..
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I mean, I get it that it's not homicide, but it isn't exactly shoplifting either, and taxpaying citizens who actually pay the salaries of these folks deserve a whole lot better than that!
