Are gated communities really safer?

[NCWmark]

I'd agree that the gated community is probably more of a false sense of security. My brother lived in a gated community in Bellevue and they got hit regularly, the police said it was because young hoodlums drive from out of the area and target gated communities because "there must be better stuff here, it's kept behind a gate".

You can talk to the police (go in person if possible) and request a print out of calls made to a community/residence/building... I think this would be very worthwhile.

[motherrain]

Thanks all,

Where ever we move to will have to have a garage. That should help some. It's amazing how many apartment complexes there are in the Seattle-Tacoma area.

[hitomebore]

My husband and I were just looking in that area as well! We looked at two gated communities and Brighton place, and out of the three of them, I'd rather move to Brighton place! The first gated community we went to was alright, but the second one, man oh my! There wasn't necessarily riff raff, but there a ton of kids running around fairly unsupervised, and from my experience, thats never good. I think the gated community gives people a feeling of safety, but they don't do background tests and drug tests etc on the people moving IN to the gated community, so its no safer than anywhere else. We were treated poorly by the staff at the gated communities and I don't ever want to go back to either place! But Brighton was a treat. The staff treated us nicely (even though we told them we wouldn't be moving to the WA area for another 6+ months and were just looking) gave us all their info and a phone number/email so we can get in touch with them closer to our moving date. I think that gated communities are a bit of joke personally. Good luck!