@chainlink_gables · 2023–2024
Liking the house wasn't enough
I moved to this house transitioning down from a lovely, large home on South Beach. Life circumstances had changed in every way and it was time to downsize. The realtor I used turned out to be awful but I didn’t realize it until after I trusted him and rented this place. The house itself was nice enough, and he said the location was “tranquilo,” i.e. safe, quiet, and family-oriented. I had a yard for my dog and the garage became my storage place. My car stayed outside in the driveway and there was a chain link fence at the sidewalk edge that needed unlocking and locking every time I came or went. That was definitely tedious, especially having been spoiled my entire life with garage door openers and an automatic gate in the Miami Beach house! It turns out that this quiet neighborhood was unwelcoming. It was largely hispanic/Cuban, almost no one spoke English (which isn’t much of a problem because I speak Spanish), but I always felt like an outsider. I would walk my dog every day. All of the houses had similar chain link fences and most people had dogs that would run at us barking fiercely. My dog became fearful because it always felt like we were about to be attacked, and I almost never saw any people. I felt like I was alone despite all of the houses around me. Within two months of moving in, someone broke into the yard (not so hard with only a chain link fence), stole everything out of my car and even entered the house that I had absolutely, randomly left unlocked that one night. My computer was visible and they took that as well. A couple of weeks later, my son’s car was parked outside the fence on my grass with a dead battery. It was stolen in the night, later recovered, but it was beyond repair. I installed a camera after this, but the damage was done. Overall, I felt very alone there in that large neighborhood and always uneasy. It did not feel like a safe area and I left after a year. I learned that liking the house itself didn’t matter if the surrounding area wasn’t a good fit. I rented it because of the house itself, but it turned out not to be the right place for me at all.