General: For those of us who are (or soon to be) Ghetto-Adjacent

Well, that sucks. I'm sorry you have to deal with that during what's such a stressful time anyhow---buying a house. But assuming you are comfortable with the neighborhood, then all you can do is thank her for her input and prove her wrong by getting to know your neighbors, becoming part of the community, and creating a house so fabulous that she'd be an idiot to refuse to go there.

Before we bought this house, we lived about 10 blocks south, but on the "right" side of the street. I knew our current neigborhood well and Iooked it up on the police crime map before I put in the offer. It was a little startling to see some of the points pop up, but it was about the level I had expected. What was more suprising was looking up my old, bucolic tree-lined street and seeing assaults and armed burglaries pop up that I had never known about. So, you can't judge a house by its cover.

1912 Bungalow has blogged about this, and I'd also recommend checking out the piece Beth Lisick did for This American Life about her neighborhood drug dealer.

I grew up in a small Midwestern farm town; think Mayberry. There was NO racial diversity. The first time I met an African American person I was in high school. It was a complete shock for my family when I decided to move to LA. It was an even bigger shock (mainly for my father) when I decided to marry the half Chinese/half Philipino man that I had been living in sin with! So, buying a house in the hood wasn't as big of a shock as it would have been otherwise.

My Dad visited a few months after we bought the house. I remember being very careful to drive him "the nice way" to our house and avoid the quicker route we normally took because it looked even more shady. The first thing my Dad said when he saw our house was that we should tear it down because it wasn't worth saving. He then said our garage, which I absolutely hate, was nicer than the house and that we should live in that. Looking back on it, our house really was in very bad shape. But, I just told him that I had a vision for the house and it was going to be great. Yes, it hurt that he was being so negative, but no matter what he said I told him how great the house was going to be some day and how much I liked it.

After he went back home, I got phone calls and letters from other family members saying that they had talked to my Dad and they wondered what we were thinking!? My Dad started calling me a "blockbuster" because I was the only white person on my block and things along those lines. I just let it go and didn't let it ruin our relationship. My Dad was supportive in his own way. He sent us tools and our first shop-vac. He didn't agree with our decision, made his feelings known but realized that it wasn't his choice to make.

The main reason we started a houseblog was so that my family could see how "nice" our house really is after we started to restore it. The funny thing is my Dad learned how to go online so he can follow along with the work on the house. Posting his picture on our website and calling it "Bob's Corner" also helped. He keeps wondering when we will write more about him. My dad has completely come around. The last time he visited he commented on "how nice our neighborhood has gotten." I almost had a heart attack!

Living in a "rougher" neighborhood has it's own set of challenges. Our neighborhood is on the edge of South Central LA. We were robbed within the first 2 months of moving into the house. We removed the burglar bars but installed an alarm system. We witnessed a pimp/ho fight right in front of our house. A man was selling crack from his car directly across the street. There was a gang fight and gun shots 2 houses down from us. Those are the worst things that have happened, but they are very isolated incidences. Most of the time our area is very quiet and all the neighbors definitely watch out for each other. Not much happens at our house that half the block doesn't know about. Our neighbors have been nothing but wonderful and welcoming to us, especially after we started to fix up the house.

After we painted our house, 4 houses on our block were painted. People have started to landscape and put out more flowers. Sometimes it just takes one house getting fixed up for other neighbors to do the same.

It's hard when your family isn't instantly supportive of a life decision. In my case a lot of it had to do with me living a completely different life from the one my family lives. Also, they were worried about my safety. My best advice is to not let it ruin your relationship. Think of your mother's concerns as advice or an opinion offered, but it is not advice that you have to take or agree with. Honestly, I could have talked to my Dad until I was blue in the face and it wouldn't have changed his mind. What did change his mind was seeing completed projects on the house. You need to make the best choice for you. Your family will come around. Try not to let your Mom's negative reaction come between you.

hey,

 

My family was pretty cool about it.. As they fully expect me to be crazy, most of the time.  Some of my freinds were a lot less supportive.  Some of them have never even actually seen the place.  Others were sure I would not last a week, others still were sure I would be dead in no time.  When I first bought the place some freinds wanted to see it so we were going to drive past one evening.  THey spent some time lecturing me on the lack of security in the area.  I was trying to explain that it was getting better when ge got up to the Judy's RedHots not far from the house.  There were more cop cars than you can shake a stick at there and about a dozen people face down on the pavement with cuffs..  All I could say then was "See they are even arresting criminals here now."  Of course since then we had a national news making beating to death of a halfway house guy and more loacl news making shootings than I can shake a stick at.

 

So, part of this is your folks showing they care.  You can do your part by helping the neighborhood prove them wrong.  Of course that part takes time... In the meantime be vigilant for your own safty.  Here in Milwaukee There are plenty of monster sized apartment buildings taking up space where there were once monster sized Queen Ann Mansions... When the day comes that your garage is relieved of its lawncare equipment remember that from an apartment building in back you can see a lot more of your yard than you probably want to think.

 

I am with 1912bungalow.. Once you start to make a difference it will start to show at other places around you. 

 

Finally, I would trade my theiving crack addicts for a jewish half hispanic half asian drag queen any day of the week, as long as they are ok with the monster Yule party's and drunken May 17th Celebration.  8^)

 

 

Ivan

 

Wow, thanks for all the support everyone. I knew you guys would have some good input on this subject, and you really helped me to try and see things from a parent's perspective as well.

Now hopefully, all of this will not be moot, right now the deal is not solid at all.

We are currently only the back-up purchase offer, something we didn't expect as we were originally told that the seller had not picked an offer yet. It seems she had orally offered the property to an investor friend about 2 weeks ago, and is claiming she is honor- bound to give him first crack at the house. She is supposed to be selling him a few other properties as well. The friend's offer was much lower than ours, and she noted on the returned offer that she would definitely have accepted ours if not for her word. She is a realtor herself, so I hope she knows what she is doing.

IMO, which is shared by both my AND her agents, if her friend was really her friend he would have a) had the paperwork ready by now to proceed instead of giving her an excuse to look at other offers, b) offered more money in light of our offer, or c) told her to go ahead and take the better offer since he was already buying other houses from her. It seems her "morals" have rendered her without judgement. So we are waiting to see if/when this "friend" falls through, and continuing to look half-heartedly at other houses. It's especially difficult when comparing it to this house which was in such nice original condition.

Please keep our situation in your thoughts and prayers, we seem to be struggling an awful lot lately. I am praying 24/7 that God will somehow influence a change of heart or mind in these people, or that we will be drawn to a more suitable house.  I do hate to see someone getting screwed by their friend, but I hate it even more when it inadvertently affects my life. God forgive me, I have very little patience for pedantic behavior.

Thank you again for the wonderful network of supportive house enthusiasts I have here!

We have an old man in our hood who takes his daily walks in a wife beater and white boxer shorts....I'd be happy to share him.

You will never be murdered in South Central Los Angeles, if you don't go to South Central Los Angeles.

It is not worth putting the lives of your family in harms way if you do not have to do so. I have years of experience working in "Ghetto" parts of the City. In those parts you only find suspects and victims. Remember the return rate of suspects to the probation and parole systems is 90-100%.

You should not have be be on constant guard at in and around your home. Talk to your neighbors and find out how many sleep on the floor of their homes, not in their beds, so they will not be struck by random gunfire. It is a lot more than you think.

You should work to get out of the problem locations. That's right run away, and fast! Life is too short to waste it constantly looking over your shoulder, driving around suspects at gunpoint in the street and other problems. If there are bars on the windows in your neighborhood, move to another neighborhood. You are behind bars!!!!! That means something.

Remember, "You will never be murdered in South Central Los Angeles, if you don't go to South Central Los Angeles."

Years ago my younger brother bought a condemned house with a loan double its value to renovate it. Not sure how he got the loan, just out of college with a degree in sociology. The day he took possesion of the house he had to ask the police for help because an old homeless guy had become wedged in the attic scuttle hole. The ensuing years he worked on it mostly alone, getting sub-contractors for stuff he couldn't manage. He was, and still is, a bit of an opinionated hothead. And eventhough he knows I'm one really good craftsman we can't work together for this very reason. The only thing I wondered about was why he never consulted with an architectural engineer. Discussion would always return to how he caught a Craftsman-style before it was razed. He cared more about image or impression, "cachet". He poured seven years of his life into it, met a woman during the painting stage, fell in love, started a family and got married...in that order. The neighborhood didn't seem that bad. He had a spooky old gentleman who lived next door by himself in a huge, yellow-grey brick four-square which oozed something tragic or misshapen. Neighbors came up and asked my brother if he'd sign a complaint against one of the neighbors across the street because they used to play bongos or congas on their front porch, kept junk in the front yard and seemed pretty "freaky" in general. He never signed on, but I think his wife would have went for it in a second.

Five quick, very-Catholic kids later he was invested in re-roofing the house, taking the old - who knows how old - wood cedar shake roof off. Being one to never listen to anybody he tore the whole thing off all at once during August and it rained. It rained hard! We helped him the best we could trying to get plastic to him, my father climbing up there on its steep pitch...in the rain. He got water inside his walls, and mold. Not good when you have two boys with asthma. He had problems with the insurance company's choice of repair contractors, had to find a way to stop them and get them out. Well, that held them up trying to get a qualified crew in. Then the insurance agency hated him. In whatever official terms they put it in for hatred they sure acted like it.

Here are the numbers:
Condemned house -------------------------$35,000
Loan ---------------------------------------------$65,000
Seven years labor --------------------------$ -????-
Appraisal (2006) ---------------------------$135,000
Rain damage cost (Insurance paid) $110,000
7 months out of his house ---------------$-????-

He ended up moving. Wife would not sign off on the mold tests! Needless to say the insurance agency dropped them (American Family) after they moved back into it. He accomodated her after selling it with a suburban white-bread house in a bleached-flour neighborhood. After having talked it up with me about how he'd found some Federal Grant money that would match cost for a teacher "moving into a bad neighborhood for three years". He was all about getting government involved, at least money-wise. Whereas he once stood up for the freaky people across the street, seemed pretty Christian, he backed down. Things changed.

I can't mince words: he married a woman who has OCD! He will never be able to make her feel safe enough. All one has to do is attempt to paint her mother's house and one will see clearly how insecurity can become a cultural heirloom. (And I won't get into that. It's too long.)

Then he had a falling out with mom over an issue of disciplining his kids in public (she's got a degree in social work). I suppose he felt he ought to have been accomodated a little because he was going through something with the school district at the time. In short, we never see his kids anymore. Don't even get so much a birthday party invitations for them. Our one discussion over this he accused mom of being mentally ill, "just not diagnosed". My semi-private conclusion runs toward the sarcastic. "Well, that certainly absolves him of any responsibility", or even slightest self-doubt in consideration that he might be a little too heavy-handed, over-compensating in reaction to how he felt he was raised with too few oversights.

Happy ending? Not yet. Conclusions? One ought to at least listen to family, before totally divorcing from their values. My cure for the asthmatic kids was to move to the mostly sootless country - out by me - where he could relax a little. (Too far from her mother's house.)

I found the title of this blog most captivating, since the very area I live in is called by all "the Student Ghetto". Originally an area where employees at the State Mental hospital and the local paper mills worked, my neighborhood is full of old Victorian and various other styles of American homes. When the University moved in around 100 years ago, the area started to be maintain by students, and the houses were then rented out, and not kept up well.
We have had somewhat of a renaissance in the last fifteen years or so of people (most former college students!) buying up property and restoring them. We even had one on "If Walls could Talk".
I myself am a renter. But that being said, I like the home I live in to be nice to look at. I pick up the trash that others throw down, I shovel my sidewalk in the winter, I clean up after my kids and dog.
We have our area homeless, the drug dealers, the hoods, the gangsta's, but we also have a lot of hardworking people that care.
Don't let you're Mother get to you. I understand that whole thing. Nothing is ever going to be as good as what she has. My husbands Aunt acts like that, and she actually lives in the hood! Drives me nuts. Some people are sheep, willing to do whatever the people around her do and think, and some are Rams, willing to fight and climb to get what they want. You sound like a Ram to me. Good luck!
Ms. Moose