View Full Version : Florida, Baby!
FLvamp
08-04-2005, 08:37 AM
Florida is great!
Except hurricane season, when there's one roaring down on ya.
Except when it's so hot ... that it's more miserable than Katy ending with a D.
Except when the snowbirds come back to roost and clog up the road I'm driving.
Except when we have a Pumpkinhead for Governor.
Except when Ricky returns to the Fish.
Awww hell, fergetit. Florida sux!
I escaped Alabama to come to Florida....I love it here!!
Ok...I am sick I even loved the hurricanes since my house came through with flyin' colors.
I was raised in Wisconsin, went to Alabama with the family and finally bolted
Think about it...beach 3 miles away...oranges, tangerines and lemons in the yard fresh every season....great sea breezes...and the joy of walking to the end of my drive way to watch the launches clear the treeline and disappear into the great blue sky...
No snow!! :1angelica
Powerhouse
08-05-2005, 03:29 PM
Florida is great!
Except hurricane season, when there's one roaring down on ya.
Except when it's so hot ... that it's more miserable than Katy ending with a D.
Except when the snowbirds come back to roost and clog up the road I'm driving.
Except when we have a Pumpkinhead for Governor.
Except when Ricky returns to the Fish.
Awww hell, fergetit. Florida sux!
Yea, but Jeb can't run again. :)
Kandi
08-05-2005, 04:04 PM
Ha! I also moved from Alabama to Florida.
You can ride your motorcycle year round here!
You can wait 3 hours for a table here because of snow birds.
You can murder innocent people at karaoke shows because they're stupid. (oops...probably shouldn't have told you that one) :1kitty4:
packyrat
08-05-2005, 04:21 PM
Well I am posting in the Sunshine state thread ONLY because that is where I live right now.
But after 19 years here waiting to "get used to the humidty" and all these freakin' hurricanes the past 9 years.....that very well may be changing in a month or so.
I am so OVER this shit that snow is starting to look good again.
Powerhouse
08-05-2005, 06:03 PM
Don't do it, Ken! Better days and mucho bikini days are still ahead! :1yamame:
packyrat
08-06-2005, 01:37 PM
Mike.....part of the decision is beyond my control. I only have about another 45 days or so in this house and there is NOTHING affordable to rent in the area.
If I told you what i was thinking of doing, you would probably have me Baker~acted!
wasabanker
08-06-2005, 01:46 PM
I live in South Carolina among a zillion halfbacks. Halfbacks? Yep, that is what the locals call the New Englanders who moved to Florida and never adjusted to the humidity. They moved halfway back to where they started and so got the name.
Packy...I here ya about the rent/housing prices....
The houses in my neighborhood are going for 3-4 times what I paid for mine 10 years ago...and rent is insane :1akagera:
sibs ling
08-06-2005, 03:25 PM
If I told you what i was thinking of doing, you would probably have me Baker~acted!
Ken - ^^^ 'Splain please.
packyrat
08-06-2005, 04:10 PM
BWS.....since Ivan nailed us here.....places that rented for $450-500 are now going for $750~1000+ and even things like mobile homes that you could choose from a selection of at $350, now you are considered lucky if you find ONE that is "only" $500. Sale prices jumped 30% in 90 days on homes that weren't damaged because all the people at the beach decided that they could buy "just any old dump" for the year or two it was going to take to get their beach palaces rebuilt and what their insurance company doesn't cover as "temporary housing" they will just write off their taxes as a capital loss. So we have a double falsely inflated housing market here now. Even with the inflated market, I have too much damage that wasn't covered by insurance to be able to get out from underneath it.
Sibs....I assume that you mean the "Baker~acted" line. That is a Florida law that permits someone to be committed based on being a perceived danger to themselves.
The fact that I am seriously considering moving from Florida to someplace close enough to Canada that I will be able to smell the moose would most likely qualify me! :1crazy:
wasabanker
08-06-2005, 06:02 PM
Packy, if you have a desparate need for snow, the US-Canada border would be just fine. However, if you are content with 1/2" of snow every two or three years, you might consider the coastal Carolinas west of the waterway. The cost of living is less than average but he job market isn't so great for anyone not in a service job. Still, you can get a nice house of 1700-1900 square feet under 15 years old on an acre for about $130K.
low-tide
08-06-2005, 11:06 PM
NW Florida, Baby.... I was just thinkin about this today:
my family has been in Florida for over a hundred years.
That is a LOT of hurricanes ! I don't think any member of our famliy has been lost in a hurricane.
.
.
a LOT of them have been lost in a fog, but that's a normal genetic anomoly :)
Susie
babyhippie
08-06-2005, 11:07 PM
We like FL so much that when we do go on vacation, it's to another part of the state. :1joint:
Packy...same here...we had almost no snow birds this year because all of the "temp" housing was grabbed by the locals who were damaged in Charlie, Frances and Jeanne.
I couldn't afford to be here if I wasn't already here...lol..off to hug my less than $500/mo mortgage on my 3 bedroom house :1dragon2:
microbes
08-07-2005, 06:55 PM
So we have a double falsely inflated housing market here now.
Housing took a spike around here too. We caught the tag end of Jeane and Frances (which was nothing at all like what you got from Ivan), not many houses destroyed, but lots and lots of them had the roofs half stripped, and even with "replacement value" hurricane insurance (which is NOT the norm for Florida, you pay a premium for it) it took us about 5 months to get a contractor to actually re-do our roof. My sisters roof is still on the "waiting list".
If I hadn't gotten out the very next day after Jeane and tarped our roof (and a good thing I had tarps, you were not going to find any for sale) we would have had some serious water damage, we already had gotten a few small stains in the ceiling. All is fixed now, but....
FLvamp
08-08-2005, 04:42 AM
Packy, you're dangerously close to The Baker Act by even writing snow looks good. :2gamecock
packyrat
08-08-2005, 05:12 AM
Hey vampie.....I remember snow....I even remember building a snowman HERE back in '95 I think it was:
http://members.aol.com:/thepackratsattic/banditsnowman
And hate to say it.....but I am fed up with Florida. The negatives have gotten to the point where they outweigh the positives.
Powerhouse
08-08-2005, 05:45 AM
I could almost agree with Ken, except that I already travel out of state so much that I never get a chance to get too used to Florida again, and I always want to have my December bikini babes strolling the beaches while the rest of the country freezes itself. :D
low-tide
08-10-2005, 08:44 AM
Higher rent?
-- I just re-rented the house I was going to sell, on a 6-month lease, and actually lowered the rent by $250 month cause the folks I rented to, they lost everything in Dennis, and the house they had been renting was 5' deep in tainted water..... Sometimes money isn't everything.
(Plus maybe it'll shorten my stay in purgatory).
lakelady
08-10-2005, 10:18 AM
Packy, if you have a desparate need for snow, the US-Canada border would be just fine. However, if you are content with 1/2" of snow every two or three years, you might consider the coastal Carolinas west of the waterway. The cost of living is less than average but he job market isn't so great for anyone not in a service job. Still, you can get a nice house of 1700-1900 square feet under 15 years old on an acre for about $130K.
Could you please be a bit more specific - recommendations for areas that might have reasonable rent? I'm clueless about what west of the waterway means. Service jobs............McDonalds, tourism, what?
Thanks.............
Packy, does the word "over-reacting" ring a bell? :2headspin
Powerhouse
08-10-2005, 10:20 AM
I'm clueless about what west of the waterway means.
waterway = Intercostal Waterway
wasabanker
08-10-2005, 04:42 PM
We have a waterway that more or less parallels the coast so the more inland folks can take their boats out to sea. The problem arises during a hurricane when the coastal areas need to be evacuated over a limited number of bridges. I learned that lesson while living in New Orleans.
Service jobs are just what they sound like food sevice and tourism related services. I know that some of the places are going way beyond teh norm to get and/or retain good help. McDonald's covers daycare 100% and some hotels bus their staff in daily which may be as much as a 4-hour ride.
I haven't checked the rental market since I first moved here as the deal on my new house was falling apart. At that time I managed to get half a duplex on the old Air Force Base for $695/mo. But there are less pricey places but I was looking for a place large enough to warehouse my furniture as I began househunting anew.
This area has a very very large retiree population as well as the Canadian snowbirds in season. Our cost of living is quite reasonable and compares favorably to Florida's.
For anyone who makes a living from their online auctions or is otherwise self employed, it is a great area. For general office workers, I might say differently. And I cannot speak for the more metropolitan areas like Columbia or Charleston.
packyrat
08-11-2005, 09:46 AM
Packy, does the word "over-reacting" ring a bell?
Well I have to look at this way.....
....in about another 45 days, the house will belong to the mortgage company; there is NOTHING reasonable to rent here; there is NOTHING reasonable to rent in my hometown in Ohio; I am on very limited funds and scratching to be able to do anything; i HAVE lived in snow before; and the situation I am being offered gives me a place where my furbabies are welcome and will provide a constant motivation with eBay....along with a much less hectic pace of life. Kind of like living a couple miles outside Mayberry with Aunt Bee and Andy on a small farm.
After all that I got hit with the past 18 months, I have to regroup to be able to get back on any kind of track.....and the opportunity to do it just isn't happening here.
Sure....going from the beach to snow country *IS* a big change....but in many ways, it is one that is very seductive.
Like anyplace....Florida DOES have its pluses....but we all know there are the minuses too. At this point, the negatives are outweighing the positives for me. I am glad I got to experience it for as long as I did....but something else is calling me now.
Powerhouse
08-11-2005, 10:04 AM
...the situation I am being offered gives me a place where my furbabies are welcome...
That unfortuantly is one the most pressing issues facing us with fuzzy family members - finding a place where they are welcome. :(
A LONG time ago (it seems) there was hardly any issue about pets and hotels/motels/rentals... now, it has become one the defining factors in the service industry... so much so that more and more places are having to advertise that they DO welcome pets, just as a means to get a bigger market share of the travellers/renters.
Yet, I can still find a room to smoke in much easier than I can find one to have my pet in.
The world has become a much sadder place. :(
lakelady
08-11-2005, 11:12 AM
Packyrat, I DO know what you mean, and I apologize if my lame attempt at humor hit a nerve. You know that I wish you the best, and I'm sure you'll be fine in Mooseland. :2headspin
Sometimes options are limited by what is available. You have a place in the snow - I have a place in NC. Doesn't sound like you have much choice. I know I don't.
Wasabanker, thank you so much for the info. I'll be in northwest NC at first, but would like to end up near the coast. I'm good at tourism related jobs so maybe I'll get lucky. Once I get to NC I should have plenty of time to look around - I've lived in the east and in the west, but never in the southeast. It never hurts to get input from people that actually live in the area, and again, I appreciate your response.
packyrat
08-11-2005, 11:46 AM
Oh Lakelady....you didn't hit a nerve at all. I just didn't insert my normal 15 emoticons in that post! :1bonk1:
Answering your post actually helped me say some things that hadn't worked their way to the one front brain cell yet.....so if anything you did GOOD. :1chirol_c
Some of that post was frustration coming out because of the huge mess getting sucked into the ethical fiasco has caused me and how believing the french fry freak's promises so long has put me in such a serious financial position. :1madrealm
But it has also showed me just how strong and caring the OAI can be too.....even Rossites. :1clap3:
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