Yesterday I read an article called What to do in a Terrorist Attack in your Neighborhood on a website called RealEstateAgent.com. I thought why would this be relevant to me? I live in a country where the only terrorism attack I can remember is when French agents sunk the Rainbow Warrior in New Zealand 33 years ago. Yes it was a shock, but it didn’t affect us other than the shock horror of a sovereign nation committing an attack on our soil, so to speak.
Then I took the analogy of an earthquake and even events like gang or other street violence and regrettably we have had our share of those and the stories remain.
This brings me back again to the topic of neighbors, which I have now raised in a number of these blogs. The article points out to get to know your neighbors. In many cities the hedges and fences grow taller and we are less in touch with the people around us.
There are lots of websites and mobile apps where you can can check crime statistics right down to city blocks or mesh blocks. If you want to know more about these, follow this blog and I will write about them with links in coming episodes.
Yesterday I was in a taxi on my way to Float Culture to get some relief for my back. If sensory deprivation and alternative ways of healing injuries and dealing with stress are of interest to you, bookmark my personal blog where I will be writing about this. For at least a few hours I went from pain at 7/10 to almost none.
The taxi driver told me proudly that he had finally bought a home after renting for 30 years. He had been an immigrant in the health sector and had eventually saved enough to buy and was able to meet the mortgage payments by having his adult children move into his 4 bedroom home and help with the repayments and only had to work 6 hours a day in the cab to meet his living costs along with his wife who was also working. He loved his neighborhood in West Auckland.
I mention the region because parts of it have a poor reputation including where I had my first home. But other parts where I have also lived were fantastic neighborhoods with great people. The key is to do your research and this comes back to talking to your potential neighbors and finding out if you are going to like them, or at least get on with them.
I’ve said it before. We like to live in places where the people are like us and that’s what our neighbors want too. There is other simple advice in the article that is worth reading too, about being prepared for emergencies.
September 2011 in Christchurch
Throughout the world we have experienced earthquakes, floods, horrific storms, tsunami and more. Being prepared means having emergency kits but it also means knowing you will have the kind of neighbor and be the kind of neighbour that checks on those around you.
I strongly recommend meeting and talking to the people that live on either side of the property you are thinking of buying. You can have bad neighbors in a good area and great neighbors in a not so great area. It’s something you want to know about before you buy.
Don’t forget, you can follow this blog or receive it by email if you want to know about how to find out more about a neighborhood before you even consider going to look at houses to buy (or rent).
I’ve just written a new eBook. It will be on Amazon in a few weeks time for around US$38. But as one of my valued readers, you can get it for free here. That’s good value for money isn’t it? Don’t tell anyone.
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