Looking at the Tri-cities? (Kennewick, Richland: apartment, for rent, townhouse)

[Dark17]

So, I'm back to WA after looking into ID. But this time I'm looking at the tri-cities.

I'm 28 (going on 29) and live with my mother (late 50s), my brother (mid 20s), and our small cairn terrier/chihuahua mix about 19 minutes from Allentown PA. We're looking to rent a 3 person townhouse or apartment (that is dog friendly, obviously).

The costs look within our range for renting in Kennewick.

I know the whole area has a conservative lean, but are there any areas within the city that are more liberal? And if not, how liberal friendly is the city? I mean, I'm not going out wearing a blinking sign obviously, but is it generally a comfortable environment for someone who is more liberal?

Lastly, spiders. I know WA is full of them (very excited here, as an arachnophobe). The ones that bother me the most are probably those giant house spiders... are those common in this area? Are there a lot of big spiders in general?

I might just build a mote around wherever we settle.

[Dark17]

I'm also looking at Wenatchee, which looks to have better hospitals.

[Dark17]

Wenatchee gets more snow than I thought, so it would have to be Kennewick. I'm just wary of the ratings for the hospitals in the area and the fact that the closest hospitals with high ratings are an hour to two hours away.

[Dark17]

...Anyone?

I'm only thinking of more questions here.

Like how frequent and bad those big dust storms I'm seeing on google images are.

[pnwguy2]

OK I'll bite. (spider reference). Since I moved back here in February I have not seen one spider. However, when I lived here in the 90's I had thrown my jeans onto the floor, and the next morning when I put them on, yep a nice bite on the upper thigh. I can't recall what time of year it was. Fortunately, it was nothing serious.

Dust storms. Again, recalling my 90's experience, several a year, some on the severe side. Nothing yet this year except for some light junk in the air. We had one event that was quite weird on my first day back. Dirt falling from the sky during a rainstorm. At first, many thought it was from Mt. St. Helens, about 100 miles to west, then a Mexican volcano, but it turned out to be a duststorm in Nevada that got caught up in a cold front and dirtied up almost everyone's car. Very strange. My guess is that major development west of Kennewick and Richland has cut down on these dust storms and they are not as frequent when the fields were not developed like they are today. I may be wrong on this, but that is educated guess.

Tri-Cities, has the best weather IMO in Washington State, and you could probably lump Oregon and Idaho in there as well. Lots of sun, relatively mild in the winter, yes some hot in the summer, but realize the average high in the Tri is only 89 during the hottest time of the year. As I have mentioned in other posts, yes 100+ days do occur, but not everyday like in Phoenix. And I won't even mention the common phrase "it isn't the heat it's the h______! Oh I guess I did.

[Dark17]

Good to know, because the other side of WA seems to have one hell of a spider problem based on what I've read.

Occasional dust storms don't sound that bad in comparison to, say, tornadoes. We get a few watches and sometimes a couple warnings every summer here, and they make me really nervous even though I've never actually been in one and most of the time nothing happens.

Based on the U.S. Climate data website, the average high in the tri-cities in July seems to be about five degrees higher than here in Allentown, but I would assume pretty much everything is air conditioned considering how high it can get. As long as I can hide indoors during the worst of it, or visit a pool, it sounds survivable.

It also gets very humid here. Whether that actually factors in when it comes to heat seems to be an ongoing debate, though.

Mild winter sounds great, we've been here in PA for around seventeen years now and we're really pretty sick of the grey winters that dump a bunch of snow on us and seem to last forever.

There appears to be a lot of debate on the risk factor of the active nuclear reactor (and even more so, the Hanford incident). It's hard to tell what the real risk factor is when you have some people insisting everyone's gonna die and others totally okay with it.

I've looked at both opinions from people here as well as the wikipedia article and actual website FAQs on the Hanford incident. But again, things sometimes get covered up so there's always that chance that it's worse than they're leading on.

I'm not hugely concerned about it myself based on what I've read, but I have a feeling my mother will be a little bit more wary about it.

My only other concern really is that the tri-cities appear to be pretty conservative. I've never really lived in a conservative area so I really have no idea what to expect on that one.

I did get your PM, and attempted to reply, but it says you aren't accepting PMs so I'll just answer here. I'll definitely let you know if we decide that the tri-cities are for us.

Thanks for the reply!

[pnwguy2]

OK thanks, I will go and try and update my status.

The Tri-Cities are a very nice area and growing fast. As for "conservative", well it is all relative. I lived in Eastern Idaho for the past 8 years, and THAT is conservative. E. WA is conservative compared to W. WA, but not overly so. You will find some moderate views here.

Great weather, and nice river location.

[lidsmichelle]

I wouldn't move here but that's just me. It's ugly and miserable here.

[pnwguy2]

I am interested in why you think it is ugly and miserable. I don't want to debate it, but curious why you have those views.

[lidsmichelle]

I've lived here 21 out of 22 years of my life. It's a desert without all the stuff that makes a real desert beautiful. It's full of things that people are allergic to, like dust storms and cotton wood trees. The weather is highly inconsistent and unpleasant. The people are like 10 years behind everything in the rest of the world.