Can you name one thing you like about your neighborhood, and one thing you dislike about it?

I’m currently waiting for Cage The Elephant to end so I can go retrieve our car from several blocks away and bring it home. First world problems. Ugh.

I love that an old growth Douglas Fir forest borders our half acre property on 3 sides. It is so private and peaceful. Black Tail Deer often bed down in our back yard. At night the coyotes, raccoons, brush rabbits and opossums make their rounds and the hoot-owls serenade all night sometimes. Great Blue Herons roost in the upper branches of the Doug Firs. I love taking our cat “Wolfy” on walks down the deer trails in the woods.

I dislike the coyotes that got one of my cats and those mean old moles that tear up our lawn.

^It does sound lovely but beauty does come with a price. We lost a cat to coyotes as well when we lived near woods.

Where I currently live, is breathtakingly beautiful.
But. It is not “home.”
I have not had a “home,” in some years…

I can make it wherever, but I miss opening a door, closing ot behind me, and feeling like I made it somewhere safe, and permanent.

Pros: My neighborhood is very quiet, which is a huge change. The neighbors are kind, and my life is calm. The area is a forest setting.
Cons: Bears. And a 428,000 acre fire is about 7 miles away.

Like: Many things, but I’ll say the lovely trees.

Dislike: The mosquitoes.

^Yeah. Fuck mosquitoes!

Fuck mosquitoes and wildfires. And moles. What purpose do they have?

I like that my street is a backward ‘C’ shape so it’s a quiet neighborhood with little through-traffic.

I also like that there’s many dogs nearby. A community of pooches, as it were.

I dislike that there are no sidewalks and the town puts zero effort into road upkeep.

On my street I love how dead quiet it is at night. One thing I don’t like is the snakes, although I haven’t seen any this year, in fact I’ve only seen three in the eight years I’ve lived here and one of three was very far from my house, but I know they are in the area. They aren’t poisonous.

In my community (maybe that’s more my neighborhood than just my street) I like the many activities I can participate in. Here’s a list if you are interested in looking at it, you can search by keyword if you do ctrl F so the search box comes up. https://www.districtgov.org/images/documents/Clubs-Listing.pdf Also, people are very friendly and helpful.

What I don’t like in my community is guests can’t use the sports pools. The sports pools have the lap lanes, water aerobics, and water volleyball.

Pros: I live ¾ mile from the ocean and 2 miles from a small city with a great live music scene (Asbury Park!)

Cons: there are an increasing number of summer residents in my neighbor hood so there is a lot of traffic and sometimes it gets very noisy.

I live on a cul-de-sac and there’s essentially no traffic. I can be sitting on the front porch for an hour and not see a car go by. But I’m about 4 minutes from a bustling shopping area where I can get anything from hardware to food to gas. It’s really the best of both worlds

I love my little neighborhood, the population is increasingly diverse, the people are really nice and kind, it feels safe and homey.

We are tucked between the freeway (not as noisy as you might think, sounds like a river at night) and the alternate numbered route, so when there is a problem on the freeway we have to follow a weird circuitous route to exit the neighborhood. Not actually a major hardship.

It’s older, mostly split foyer homes and mid-century modern ranchers. That being the case, we still have ½ acre level lots with mature trees. Houses built after around 1985 here have no yard space. My neighborhood still has an active community pool. What I don’t like is something I did like when we moved in. There is a network of greenways that border the hood and it used to be very nice. Since Covid and a few other circumstances, the greenways have become a haven for homeless camps. None were there just five years ago.

I like the people in the neighborhood. A lot of them know each other and will help each other as need arises.

I don’t like all the new construction going on around our neighborhood. It has made our neighborhood the main thoroughfare for going on 1000 new homes (There are already over 500 and they are currently building an addition to it of another 500). We get 735 cars a day cutting through and they go anywhere from 25 mph to 60 mph. It will only get worse when the new homes are built and sold.

One thing I like – it’s in a beautiful area, lake on one side, horse farm on the other, very safe area close to the highway, shopping, not far from the city (although a PITA train ride at an hour and a half), so a good location overall.

One thing I don’t like – houses are close together as it’s a former summer community so the neighbors are not far away, and it’s not difficult to see into each other’s homes unless the blinds are closed. I hate that.

Pros: her neighborhood seems to be fairly quiet and I like that my place is only two miles from my job. I don’t even have to go through any traffic lights on the way to work, just side roads.

Cons: there are a couple of people in my building that smoke really cheap pot. It smells like bad body odor and a dead animal combined. These are old buildings so unfortunately the smell gets in my apartment and sometimes when I’m trying to sleep it’s really bad. I’ve taken a number of steps which seem to help but just can’t really get rid of it. And my rent is crazy high, but I realize it’s like that everywhere just about.

Pro: I’m close to cycle paths and walkways by the river.
Con: The litter that tends to gather in neighbouring gardens.

Pro: Little quiet neighborhood, one street in and out most houses on a circle road.

Con: Lots of yahoo MAGA supporters ! They think Trump is the best thing since Jefferson Davis !

@jonsblond I was actually just discussing that values of moles this morning. They break up the ground, aerating it, and fertilizing it, and creating new water channels and water retention for the soil. They also eat grubs which become beetles and/or other insects which tend to do more damage to plants than moles themselves do.

@Zaku great information! I like anything that helps rid of pesky bugs.

I live on an interesting northwest edge of Milwaukee, WI, where dense city apartments, farms, suburban subdivisions, and a forested riverway feather into each other. A good bicycling area.

I love the lawn outside my apartment. The site is a breezy little hill, with tall trees keeping it shady and cool even when it’s 90F. This time of year (summer) I often sit outside after work for an hour or two. I read, cook on my charcoal grill, and watch my goldfinch friends at the bird feeder. On a lucky day, woodpeckers visit, too. Crows, eagles, hawks and cranes fly overhead fairly often. Bright red cardinals are a constant presence and robins hop about eating bugs and worms. Turkeys sometimes drop by looking for crumbs about the feeder. I have deer guests once or twice a year.

On the negative side of the ledger, I miss Chicago. I’ve been up here (Milwaukee is 90 miles north) five years. Materially, the difference is obviously vast, with a lot fewer opportunities of every kind in a smaller city. Plus I haven’t made any new close friends, so my support group is still in Chicagoland.

As I write this, I think I could live well enough almost anywhere, but as an older introvert, it would be better to be among my old friends.

^Jon and I have been in Madison, WI for six years. We’re only about 80 miles west from you. We should consider a meetup if you’d like. :)

I drive my father to Brookfield once a month for his monthly eye shot for macular degeneration. We always treat ourselves to Kopp’s afterwards.

Pro: Quiet side road for walks and children, we all know eachother by name, beautiful huge old trees and big lots. 10 minutes from lake and Bucees.
Cons: Close to I44, close to deep woods so lots of possums, racoons and other wildlife. Mixed blessing.

^Why you have to bad mouth opossums?..

Ignorance here, @KNOWITALL what is Buccees?

@MrGrimm888 They arent terrible but they love our cat food.

@elbanditoroso It’s a chain gas station like a mall, no semi’s allowed. Kind of a tourist attraction believe it or not. Great meats though.

@KNOWITALL I don’t think we have them here.

Learn something new every day. There are three in Georgia – one in Savannah, and two in way south Ga. not far from Florida. None up in Atlanta.

@elbanditoroso Yeah theyre pretty popular, people drive out of their way to come. Its always packed, too.
I just enjoy the nice bbq meats myself. :)
Cleanest restrooms, never a wait on gas, discounts on gas, and tons of cutesy crap that costs a fortune. A nice cheesesteak is $9 though haha!

Buccees is great. There are two in Florida. When I see the big sign on the highway in Florida, I yell “Buccees! and we have to stop. They have bbq pulled pork and stuff like that, fudge, soda, nostalgic candy, all kinds of popcorn and bakery items, souvenirs, housewares, camping equipment, you name it. You can go in there for the bathroom and easily spend $40 lol.

The Buc-Ee’s are they are building in my state is 74,000-square-foot building. That is almost the size of a football field in length and breadth.

I live within an hour – 2 hours of three of them here in Tennessee. The novelty wears off quickly.

It’s still a selling point…
I get it.
We have Parkers Kitchen. It’s a “high end” convenience store.
Their ownership had a great idea. You guys know what “hospital ice” is? The perfect little rounded cubes, with the perfect crunch…
They sell that shit, in bags.
Tha good ice!

They have decent gas station food, clean restrooms, and all that too. But that ice makes everything a little better.

IF there is a God, he surely uses that ice…

@elbanditoroso People post about their stop at Buc-ee’s during their road trips like it’s a vacation destination. I’ve never been to one. Here’s locations. https://buc-ees.com/locations/

I probably past right by several years ago when I didn’t know what it was.