01-30-2012, 06:25 AM
quote:
Originally posted by linS
We bought our house and discovered Punaweb later.No regrets so far except may be being too excited and somehow contributing to our friend's mistake.
I read this thread and thought it may help some people
While I don't completely agree with BradW his post can be helpful.
http://punaweb.org/Forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2360&whichpage=9
"Puna on the Big Island is an ugly place. Hawaiian Beaches and surrounding areas the most so. PunaWeb is a dis-service to those who sell their all elsewhere and move over, starry eyed, as we did, and spend much of their life's savings and all of their dreams, to live and be happy in unparadise. It ain't there. You'll move back.
We tried, then tried some more. "Kill Haole Day" in public schools, "Born Here Not Flown Here" on t-shirts eveywhere we looked, "Go home haole" yelled at us from the Post Office to the beach. The finger. Our neighbors were pigs with everything from major family abuse against each other to big-time meth factories. And if the local police were aware of obvious illegal activity, they could not care less.
How many folks become dis-inchanted and move back to the Mainland? The answer is most. Why is that? Please save your money and find your place in the 48. Let the BI sink, without you, into the ocean where it belongs."
I accidentally posted this on the linked post instead of here. This is what I meant:
I think what most people are forgetting is that you can substitute virtually any place name into this story and it could be just as true. I found a great home in NE Portland- 4 bedroom, huge lot, park nearby, etc for a bargain price. It wasn't until after I moved in that I learned I was literally living next door to a crack house. During my pre-rental visits must have been the only time his pit bulls weren't barking at full volume 24 hours a day.
It was unusual NOT to hear multiple gunshots of attempted or actual homicides every night. My house was cased every single day. I had to buy a huge rottweiler to discourage people from looking into my windows and through the mail slot in the front door. There was a high speed car chase that ended right in front of my house and the suspect ran into my back yard, chased by cops with their guns drawn. My ex wife (was wife then) was sleeping in the bedroom the cops were using the corner of the house as "cover". I had to wake her up and try to explain she needed to leave the room quietly and get down on the floor. Anything we left outside was immediately stolen. We even had our garbage stolen. We had to remove the hand-tightening thing from the outside water spigot to keep people from stealing our hose and sprinkler when we were watering the lawn (it wasn't worth stealing if you had to get all wet apparently).
That was just one place I lived. In one neighborhood I visited in Washington DC it was even worse. A lot worse. At the KFC you had to order through bullet proof glass. Your chicken was dispensed from a bullet proof turn stile. You had to go through a metal detector to get into the Safeway grocery store. One time we couldn't get to the store because there were 30-40 young men fighting in the parking lot, using broken beer bottles as weapons. The next day we tried to rent a Ryder truck (to get the hell out of that neighborhood) and we were stopped by the police due to an armed man with a hostage situation. Every window had bars on them. Every front door was reinforced with bars. Every business closed at dusk. You never, ever went outside alone at night. My friend was punched and robbed in the middle of the day with witnesses all around.
What were you saying is wrong with Puna?