Author Topic: Bad neighbourhoods?  (Read 8938 times)

APowers

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Bad neighbourhoods?
« on: March 24, 2019, 12:28:51 PM »
So, I hear people talk (both IRL and online) about how such and such is a "bad neighbourhood", but I wonder how much of that is "you're statistically much more likely to be robbed/assaulted while minding your own business", and how much of it is just "ewwww, poor people!".

Note: I've never lived in a "big city", and I grew up sheltered in a non-racist rural west-coast area, so I'm not really attuned to the much more highly race-sensitive undertones that seem to be a "back East" thing. For instance, I can find reasonable rents in a "bad neighbourhood" in the D.C./Baltimore area, but when I look up the neighbourhood, it's predominantly black-- but I don't know how much of the "bad neighbourhood" is "yeah, your car's gonna get jacked" and how much is "ewww, poor black people!"

I'm not sure exactly how to find this out without actually moving. Anyone have relevant experience?

BudgetSlasher

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #1 on: March 24, 2019, 01:21:49 PM »
It could be some of both. I have limited experience, but I have found many "bad" neighborhoods to be much better than I was led to believe and both times I have had my car broken into have been in "nice" neighborhoods.

I would suggest that if you have specific areas in mind you do some research online. Many major cities have online crime reporting. Since you mention Baltimore here is an example https://www.baltimorepolice.org/crime-stats/crime-map-data-stats. From there you can run a search my neighborhood for a time span of up to 90 days. There are some links on that site to other sources of data. Such as the FBI crime data explorer.

It appears that DC has a similar system https://dcatlas.dcgis.dc.gov/crimecards/.

The racial aspect can go both ways. A white person (which I am assuming you are based on your post) with a decent job/some money moving into a "bad" neighborhood (assuming from you post this means black and lower income) can been see as a sign of gentrification (which is its own controversy).

tralfamadorian

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #2 on: March 24, 2019, 01:36:20 PM »
Bad neighborhoods in a city like Baltimore are no joke and I would take people's advice seriously though of course do your due diligence. Personally, I use trulia's crime overlay and spotcrime to check whether a neighborhood is high crime vs just working class. Most big cities will also have their own website like Baltimore's here.

Regarding POC and working class neighborhoods- most cities in the mid-atlantic and south have a much larger black population (Baltimore 64%, DC proper 47%) than their west coast counterparts (Seattle 7%, Denver 10%) so there will be black neighborhoods, white neighborhoods, mixed neighborhoods. Median income of black households is lower than that of white households and that is serious problem throughout the country but at least poor POC can still afford to live in the east coast cities.

Cranky

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #3 on: March 24, 2019, 02:41:06 PM »
I would suggest that in Denver, neighborhoods/economic lines/class division are more likely to fall along white/Hispanic lines.

OtherJen

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #4 on: March 24, 2019, 02:51:41 PM »
Caveat: I live in a suburb. Things may be very different in a city and from city to city.

I live in the “bad” part of said suburb, which corresponds to a higher level of racial diversity and lower average socioeconomic level. Interestingly, nearly all the city crime (mostly theft and other property crimes) reports are from the two “better” sections of the city, which leads me to believe that here, “bad” may be code for “poor/non-white”.

My neighborhood is quiet. Neighbors are polite. The adults mostly keep to themselves, but the kids run back and forth between each others’ yards. At least once per summer, husband forgets to close the garage door at night. Nothing has ever been stolen.

My parents live in a “good” neighborhood in the next suburb. They’ve had their car stolen out of their driveway twice, both times when the city mayor lived three blocks away.

Sibley

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #5 on: March 24, 2019, 03:58:27 PM »
My experience has been that about 90% of the time, the "bad" neighborhood is the poor/minority area. There are exceptions of course. In general, I assume until proven otherwise that the "bad" area is just poorer.

I do find it amusing (in a sick way) that some of the "nice" neighborhoods also have the worst crime problems.

Fi(re) on the Farm

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #6 on: March 24, 2019, 04:13:57 PM »
I have a co-worker who is house shopping and she's looking at 2 houses in the same price range, one is updates, new roof, nice deck but in a less desirable neighborhood (not bad but solidly lower middle class), the other hasn't had any work done since it was built in 1970 and nothing has been done to it since then but it's in an upper middle class town. It would take $80,000 to bring it up to the level of the other house but she can't see it. She only sees that it's in the "it" neighborhood.

partdopy

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #7 on: March 24, 2019, 05:38:56 PM »
My experience has been that about 90% of the time, the "bad" neighborhood is the poor/minority area. There are exceptions of course. In general, I assume until proven otherwise that the "bad" area is just poorer.

I do find it amusing (in a sick way) that some of the "nice" neighborhoods also have the worst crime problems.

Of course the 'nice' neighborhood has the worst crime problem.  What you're missing here is it isn't the residents of the 'nice' neighborhood committing the crimes, it is people coming to the 'nice' neighborhood to commit crimes.  If you live in a rundown/poor area and have a goal of breaking into some cars to steal stuff, you going to break into your neighbors $2,500 Chevy Astro Van or drive 15 minutes and go for a few Mercedes and Lexus parked on the curbs of the 'nice' neighborhood?

The bad area is going to be one of the poor areas, as that is where the criminals come from by both necessity and culture.  The criminals living in the rich areas are going to rob your investment account or your health insurance policy, not your wallet.

APowers

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #8 on: March 24, 2019, 06:09:17 PM »
It could be some of both. I have limited experience, but I have found many "bad" neighborhoods to be much better than I was led to believe and both times I have had my car broken into have been in "nice" neighborhoods.

I would suggest that if you have specific areas in mind you do some research online. Many major cities have online crime reporting. Since you mention Baltimore here is an example https://www.baltimorepolice.org/crime-stats/crime-map-data-stats. From there you can run a search my neighborhood for a time span of up to 90 days. There are some links on that site to other sources of data. Such as the FBI crime data explorer.

It appears that DC has a similar system https://dcatlas.dcgis.dc.gov/crimecards/.

The racial aspect can go both ways. A white person (which I am assuming you are based on your post) with a decent job/some money moving into a "bad" neighborhood (assuming from you post this means black and lower income) can been see as a sign of gentrification (which is its own controversy).

I did end up finding Baltimore PD's crime map overlay, and that was super-helpful....unfortunately, my own city in CO doesn't have one, so it's really difficult to compare paper numbers to my own experience in that way.

BicycleB

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #9 on: March 24, 2019, 06:31:25 PM »
No experience of the east.

My state and city have racism, as most places do if you look. Bought house in "bad" neighborhood once, gained $300,000 when more gentrification came 20-25 years later. Lived through an era of distant gunshots first; no personal safety incidents.

If I were moving and wondered about a neighborhood, I'd look up online comments by residents, then if possible visit in person and ask questions of residents. Any place with homeowners has people who can tell you a lot.

MonkeyJenga

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #10 on: March 24, 2019, 06:48:06 PM »
I've been wondering this myself, as I just booked an Airbnb in Atlanta. Almost every time I found a reasonable price, it was a "bad" neighborhood. I'm possibly too blase about walking through cities alone, at all times, and I'm never sure if the reputations are due to low-income and racial demographics, or actual crime.

This thread prompted me to find this site, and, uh, the rumors were true about Pittsburgh and Peoplestown...

WhiteTrashCash

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #11 on: March 24, 2019, 06:49:44 PM »
I used to live in an area of a city where the houses had bars on all the windows to keep burglars out. That was a bad neighborhood. Neighborhoods where people just don't take care of their lawns very well are totally fine.

NoVa

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #12 on: March 24, 2019, 07:05:55 PM »
A co-worker had a house in the wrong neighborhood in Baltimore. Bars on windows, etc. Didn't stop people from breaking and entering while they were at work. They finally moved.

HBFIRE

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #13 on: March 24, 2019, 07:10:52 PM »
A co-worker had a house in the wrong neighborhood in Baltimore. Bars on windows, etc. Didn't stop people from breaking and entering while they were at work. They finally moved.

Baltimore is brutally scary, basically a war zone.  I lived there in the 90's for awhile, and have many crazy stories.  There are areas in Baltimore that make Compton seem nice.
« Last Edit: March 24, 2019, 08:15:40 PM by HBFIRE »

tralfamadorian

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #14 on: March 24, 2019, 08:13:43 PM »
My experience has been that about 90% of the time, the "bad" neighborhood is the poor/minority area. There are exceptions of course. In general, I assume until proven otherwise that the "bad" area is just poorer.

I do find it amusing (in a sick way) that some of the "nice" neighborhoods also have the worst crime problems.

Of course the 'nice' neighborhood has the worst crime problem.  What you're missing here is it isn't the residents of the 'nice' neighborhood committing the crimes, it is people coming to the 'nice' neighborhood to commit crimes.  If you live in a rundown/poor area and have a goal of breaking into some cars to steal stuff, you going to break into your neighbors $2,500 Chevy Astro Van or drive 15 minutes and go for a few Mercedes and Lexus parked on the curbs of the 'nice' neighborhood?

The bad area is going to be one of the poor areas, as that is where the criminals come from by both necessity and culture.  The criminals living in the rich areas are going to rob your investment account or your health insurance policy, not your wallet.

You're speaking solely of property crime while the cities that the OP mentioned specifically, Baltimore and DC, have histories of high rates of violent crime. Violent crime, particularly gang related violent crime, is centered around the territories in which those gangs operate aka the bad neighborhoods in question. Being flippant about the danger of neighborhoods with poor reputations in a city with a crime rate like Baltimore is reckless at best.

Imma

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #15 on: March 25, 2019, 03:33:40 AM »
I live in a "bad" neighbourhood that isn't all that bad. It used to be worse - more property crime, more benefits fraud, drug dealing and production happened quite openly. The local government really cracked down on that and now there is no visible crime. I feel really safe here. There is no open violent crime and no gangs and hardly any property crime at all.

However, many people are still involved in international drug trade. This results in targeted extreme violence. This doesn't affect my sense of safety because I'm not a criminal, but houses get shot at during the night, a guy was nearly beaten to death in a bar around the corner a few weeks ago (after hours - and don't feel sorry for him too much, he was responsible for the death of 3 young guys in a drug lab explosion) and about once a year, someone gets shot dead. These are targeted professional hits and aren't a big risk to bystanders. Recently a live hand grenade was put in front of someone's house at night as a threat. I hope this doesn't happen again, because this could easily harm innocent people. I would consider moving if that kind of violence would increase.

SwitchActiveDWG

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #16 on: March 25, 2019, 06:19:47 AM »
So, I hear people talk (both IRL and online) about how such and such is a "bad neighbourhood", but I wonder how much of that is "you're statistically much more likely to be robbed/assaulted while minding your own business", and how much of it is just "ewwww, poor people!".

Note: I've never lived in a "big city", and I grew up sheltered in a non-racist rural west-coast area, so I'm not really attuned to the much more highly race-sensitive undertones that seem to be a "back East" thing. For instance, I can find reasonable rents in a "bad neighbourhood" in the D.C./Baltimore area, but when I look up the neighbourhood, it's predominantly black-- but I don't know how much of the "bad neighbourhood" is "yeah, your car's gonna get jacked" and how much is "ewww, poor black people!"

I'm not sure exactly how to find this out without actually moving. Anyone have relevant experience?

This is what I would mean if I were to say bad neighborhood and in my personal experience, these neighborhoods are often where poor people live. It's not really "eww poor people"; it's more like, how often is John Doe accountant or Jane Doe pediatrician robbing you at knife point?

I grew up in bad neighborhoods and my family was poor. I had lots of confrontations and bad experiences. Since my childhood, I've moved into "nice" neighborhoods and have never had a confrontation or bad experience around my home.

tipster350

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #17 on: March 25, 2019, 07:13:16 AM »
Objective data on crime stats is available. One of the real estate listing sites (Trulia?) has crime maps integrated with the listings. I used this when looking for a house. Opinions may be based on personal experience and/or preconceived notions, so I tend not to put much weight on them. Crime maps tell the story. There are some neighborhoods you don't even want to drive through, much less live in.

I found a house in a blue collar neighborhood with low crime. Housing prices are very reasonable and it's as safe as "nicer" neighborhoods, thanks to using the crime maps in my search.

Imma

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #18 on: March 25, 2019, 08:07:54 AM »
I do think crime maps should be taken with a grain of salt, especially when it concerns "petty crime". Who really reports that? People who own valuable stuff that is insured. People who are not afraid of police and don't have anything to hide. I'm not surprised that some wealthier neighbourhoods have higher crime rates.

Luck12

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #19 on: March 25, 2019, 08:22:50 AM »
My experience has been that about 90% of the time, the "bad" neighborhood is the poor/minority area. There are exceptions of course. In general, I assume until proven otherwise that the "bad" area is just poorer.

I do find it amusing (in a sick way) that some of the "nice" neighborhoods also have the worst crime problems.

Crime rates for "nice" neighborhoods can be deceptively high because of the sheer amount of people (tourists, party goers, just general people hanging out b/c it's a good neighborhood) that are in them at any given time.  Basically the denominator in crime rates is # of residents wheras # of people passing through should really be the denominator. 

MonkeyJenga

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #20 on: March 25, 2019, 08:29:56 AM »
Huh. I looked up my old neighborhoods in Queens, and I mostly lived in the top 2 most dangerous levels. (Using neighborhoodscout's map overlay.) Queens didn't feel too dangerous, though. I was a lot more comfortable walking around at night than when I visited a friend in Inglewood, a dark blue area in LA. I don't think I can compare across cities with the overlay. I'm guessing they scale the shading to account for the min/max in each city. If I look at crime overall for NYC, Queens is safer than Manhattan, Bk, the Bronx, and the state as a whole. NYS is itself safer than the national median.

LA is twice as dangerous as Queens when it comes to violent crime. ATL is three times as dangerous. That only comes across when looking at the numbers, not the map shading.

I ended up getting my ATL Airbnb in a neighborhood with lighter shading than my old hoods in Queens. But it's likely that it's actually more dangerous, given that Atlanta as a whole has 3x the level of violent crime as Queens and 5x the level pf property crime.

Interesting.

dcheesi

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #21 on: March 25, 2019, 08:52:38 AM »
Huh. I looked up my old neighborhoods in Queens, and I mostly lived in the top 2 most dangerous levels. (Using neighborhoodscout's map overlay.) Queens didn't feel too dangerous, though. I was a lot more comfortable walking around at night than when I visited a friend in Inglewood, a dark blue area in LA. I don't think I can compare across cities with the overlay. I'm guessing they scale the shading to account for the min/max in each city. If I look at crime overall for NYC, Queens is safer than Manhattan, Bk, the Bronx, and the state as a whole. NYS is itself safer than the national median.

LA is twice as dangerous as Queens when it comes to violent crime. ATL is three times as dangerous. That only comes across when looking at the numbers, not the map shading.

I ended up getting my ATL Airbnb in a neighborhood with lighter shading than my old hoods in Queens. But it's likely that it's actually more dangerous, given that Atlanta as a whole has 3x the level of violent crime as Queens and 5x the level pf property crime.

Interesting.
And in terms of local perception, it's all relative. The worst neighborhoods in my home town are laughably tame1 compared to large swathes of another (and only slightly larger) city a couple of hours away. Yet the hometown locals still talk about those neighborhoods as if you're going to get mugged/shot every five feet!

1and rapidly gentrifying, to boot

EricEng

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #22 on: March 25, 2019, 10:57:58 AM »
I choose to ignore this once and ended up breaking my apartment lease early.  Car broken into once.  Threats and intimidation from gangs.  Gun shots in parking lot every couple months. Weekly police raids on drug and gang dealers in neighborhood.  When they raided my next door neighbor for meth I moved out. 

True bad neighborhoods have crime problems, poor or otherwise. 

partgypsy

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #23 on: March 25, 2019, 11:09:48 AM »
Huh. I looked up my old neighborhoods in Queens, and I mostly lived in the top 2 most dangerous levels. (Using neighborhoodscout's map overlay.) Queens didn't feel too dangerous, though. I was a lot more comfortable walking around at night than when I visited a friend in Inglewood, a dark blue area in LA. I don't think I can compare across cities with the overlay. I'm guessing they scale the shading to account for the min/max in each city. If I look at crime overall for NYC, Queens is safer than Manhattan, Bk, the Bronx, and the state as a whole. NYS is itself safer than the national median.

LA is twice as dangerous as Queens when it comes to violent crime. ATL is three times as dangerous. That only comes across when looking at the numbers, not the map shading.

I ended up getting my ATL Airbnb in a neighborhood with lighter shading than my old hoods in Queens. But it's likely that it's actually more dangerous, given that Atlanta as a whole has 3x the level of violent crime as Queens and 5x the level pf property crime.

Interesting.
And in terms of local perception, it's all relative. The worst neighborhoods in my home town are laughably tame1 compared to large swathes of another (and only slightly larger) city a couple of hours away. Yet the hometown locals still talk about those neighborhoods as if you're going to get mugged/shot every five feet!

1and rapidly gentrifying, to boot

Yeah I would say there are "bad" neighborhoods, and there are objectively bad neighborhoods. i've lived in chicago, visited St. Louis where family lives, and now live in Durham. There are some "bad" neighborhood which are simply working class, smaller homes but people take care of their business and generally their lawns. Maybe they have more cars that are being fixed up, their kids play in the street, etc but it's fine to live there. You don't have to deal with HOAs, and while your house may not be as valuable as a "nice" neighborhood, you didn't pay as much for it. Depending on other factors the neighborhood may gentrify and be worth relatively more than a stable "good" neighborhood. And then you have the objectively bad neighborhoods. You don't need to run statistics of what they are, it's yes the places that look more like war zones and you get hostile stares even just driving through.

For people I know, a big deal is whether a neighborhood is in a good school district, or zoned to a good public school. That is the real or primary reason people are paying more for the "good neighborhood". But if you are single, dinks, retired/kids grown, then you can choose whether or not you want to pay that premium.

Adam Zapple

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #24 on: March 25, 2019, 11:38:01 AM »
The only thing you can do is check crime statistics.  There is usually some truth to areas rumored to be "bad" in that poverty and drug use/ property crimes tend to go hand-in-hand.  That being said, even crappy cities can have nice neighborhoods.  My city is considered "poor" and "dangerous" by our ultra-wealthy, ultra-white neighboring towns yet I feel perfectly safe here, enjoy the benefits that diversity brings to living here and would never want to live somewhere that social life revolves around golf and country clubs.

Dave1442397

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #25 on: March 25, 2019, 05:24:49 PM »
Apart from crime stats, the other issue that I see around here is the physical condition of the housing. Our 'bad' neighborhoods are usually comprised of row houses, and the problem with row houses is that if your neighbors don't keep up their property, yours can go down hill too. You can have pests migrating from neighbors to your house, structural issues with common walls, etc.

I have a friend who tried to make some money by buying derelict houses in one of those areas. He bought three houses for $8,000 each, spent money fixing them up, and then started renting them out. He said there wasn't a single month he came out ahead. If the rent got paid, then the houses were being trashed to the point where it wasn't worth it. When the rent didn't get paid, evictions took forever, and again, the houses were trashed.

He ended up letting one family live in a house for free provided they took care of it and kept an eye on his other two properties. Once he figured out that he could never make money, he let the houses go back to the city for unpaid taxes, as he couldn't even sell them.

Infrastructure is an issue too. I had to drive through the above neighborhood one day, and made a wrong turn. It looked as if I had just turned onto a movie set from London in WWII after a bombing raid. The potholes were so deep I just backed up to get out of there.

The schools are also a problem. Of course they do what they can, but the buildings are full of lead paint and asbestos. It's not an easy environment for kids who actually want to learn. I read a news article about a girl who was a straight A student there, but found out just how far behind the curve she was when she went to live with a relative in the Carolinas. She thought she would enjoy being at a better school, but she said she was so worried about her bad grades that she went back to the old school, because she figured that college admission offices would prefer to see straight As than a bunch of Cs and Ds.

partdopy

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #26 on: March 25, 2019, 07:05:20 PM »
My experience has been that about 90% of the time, the "bad" neighborhood is the poor/minority area. There are exceptions of course. In general, I assume until proven otherwise that the "bad" area is just poorer.

I do find it amusing (in a sick way) that some of the "nice" neighborhoods also have the worst crime problems.

Of course the 'nice' neighborhood has the worst crime problem.  What you're missing here is it isn't the residents of the 'nice' neighborhood committing the crimes, it is people coming to the 'nice' neighborhood to commit crimes.  If you live in a rundown/poor area and have a goal of breaking into some cars to steal stuff, you going to break into your neighbors $2,500 Chevy Astro Van or drive 15 minutes and go for a few Mercedes and Lexus parked on the curbs of the 'nice' neighborhood?

The bad area is going to be one of the poor areas, as that is where the criminals come from by both necessity and culture.  The criminals living in the rich areas are going to rob your investment account or your health insurance policy, not your wallet.

You're speaking solely of property crime while the cities that the OP mentioned specifically, Baltimore and DC, have histories of high rates of violent crime. Violent crime, particularly gang related violent crime, is centered around the territories in which those gangs operate aka the bad neighborhoods in question. Being flippant about the danger of neighborhoods with poor reputations in a city with a crime rate like Baltimore is reckless at best.

Guessing you didn't read the post I quoted in my reply? 

Sibley

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #27 on: March 25, 2019, 07:15:41 PM »
My experience has been that about 90% of the time, the "bad" neighborhood is the poor/minority area. There are exceptions of course. In general, I assume until proven otherwise that the "bad" area is just poorer.

I do find it amusing (in a sick way) that some of the "nice" neighborhoods also have the worst crime problems.

Of course the 'nice' neighborhood has the worst crime problem.  What you're missing here is it isn't the residents of the 'nice' neighborhood committing the crimes, it is people coming to the 'nice' neighborhood to commit crimes.  If you live in a rundown/poor area and have a goal of breaking into some cars to steal stuff, you going to break into your neighbors $2,500 Chevy Astro Van or drive 15 minutes and go for a few Mercedes and Lexus parked on the curbs of the 'nice' neighborhood?

The bad area is going to be one of the poor areas, as that is where the criminals come from by both necessity and culture.  The criminals living in the rich areas are going to rob your investment account or your health insurance policy, not your wallet.

You're speaking solely of property crime while the cities that the OP mentioned specifically, Baltimore and DC, have histories of high rates of violent crime. Violent crime, particularly gang related violent crime, is centered around the territories in which those gangs operate aka the bad neighborhoods in question. Being flippant about the danger of neighborhoods with poor reputations in a city with a crime rate like Baltimore is reckless at best.

Guessing you didn't read the post I quoted in my reply?

I also notice that no one asked me to clarify what I meant by crime. I nearly bought a house in a "nice" neighborhood. Until I found out that the local high school (again, "nice" area) had a serious gang problem, and it was spilling out to the surrounding neighborhood. It had started with property crime, but had escalated to violent crime. And lots of it. I passed on the house.

APowers

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #28 on: March 25, 2019, 10:26:51 PM »
See, here I thought this would be a helpful thread, but half of y'all say that a "bad neighbourhood" can be fine, and the other half are like, "yeah, you'll probably get your stuff jacked."

I feel like I don't understand a way to navigate this problem any better than before, lol!

Wintergreen78

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #29 on: March 26, 2019, 02:13:15 AM »
I think it really depends on the neighborhood. I lived in Atlanta for a while, and I see the neighborhood I was in shown as a high-crime area. We had a few instances of cars getting broken into, but I felt perfectly safe walking around after dark. There were other parts of Atlanta that seemed super sketchy.

I don’t know of any way to really tell without visiting a place or talking to someone who knows the place. But, there are definitely people who will tell you that every low-income neighborhood is dangerous. Ignore those people.

Wolfpack Mustachian

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #30 on: March 26, 2019, 03:59:45 AM »
From a rural perspective, bad neighborhoods are definitely dangerous. One of the interesting thing about rural areas that I didn't realize because is always lived there and knew no different is outside of these areas, you won't see a 400k house followed by a couple of trailers followed by a 150k ranch house followed by a 150 year old shack work no indoor plumbing followed by a 500k-1mil house (literally roads I know). Income stratification at least by house type surprised me when I finally dealt with it for suburbs. Anyways, the bad neighborhoods I know around here are like a specific street or whatnot and the people on them have directly told me don't come here at night because two weeks ago this guy that they know got shot and killed kind of thing. It's legit.

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #31 on: March 26, 2019, 04:04:58 AM »
I live in a kind of 'bad neighborhood' in our city here in Italy.  It's not nearly as bad as bad neighborhoods in the US mainly due to lack of guns.  However, there are tons of junkies and drugs around.  We see people shooting up between parked cars sometimes, see people selling drugs, find needles in our entryway etc.  There is also the crime that goes with that - mostly breaking into cars and petty theft.  I grew up in a not so great neighborhood in a big city in the US so I feel comfortable here.  Good neighborhoods just seem boring and homogenous.  Not sure what that says about me.

One other thing is that many people in our city are snobbish about our neighborhood as there are many immigrants living here.  The immigrants for the most part are hard working people and I like living amongst them as it means I can find foreign foods.  Also I'm an immigrant myself.

soccerluvof4

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #32 on: March 26, 2019, 04:20:09 AM »
My personal experience of living in the city and moving to the burbs is in the city there are areas that are pretty nice and kept up well and those nicer areas usually are around the large hospitals or strong Jewish communities that stick together etc.. The problem is seemingly they get robbed by the neighborhoods next door that surround them as the criminals go outside of there neighborhoods to do most of the crime. But there are neighborhoods within our city you don't even want to drive through. Really need to do your research for safety, property value drops, schools etc..As a kid I think we moved 7 times with in the city as my parents didn't have much money and rented to try and stay a few blocks away from areas that were turning and my dad always had a pistol in his bedside drawer. We never got robbed cause we always had a dog which helped but we had 2 cars stolen. For me I wouldnt have a problem living in an area in the city but would worry everyday about my DW and kids. I do drive through the old neighborhoods and stuff to show them how I grew up its a good lesson.

Lmoot

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #33 on: March 26, 2019, 05:03:23 AM »
There is going to be merging of “good/bad”, and pockets of good within the bad, even bad within the good. Especially when you get into more urban areas where things are condensed.

In terms of safety I would prefer a nondescript, out of the way, in the center of larger “decent areas”....places that aren’t highly visible, that only the people that live there know or remember it’s there. Visibility is a factor.....if you want to be in the middle of it, then you deal with transients, if you want prominent seclusion, your area could be a target as it’s hard to hide opulence, and secluding it sometimes makes it stand out.

I own a house in a smaller, older, lower middle-class area. It is one block away from the hip historic “it” neighborhood. There have only been a few thefts in my neighborhood  in decades, according to neighbors and at least two of those were from individuals who knew the homeowners, and one was items stolen that were left out in the front yard. The upper middle class neighborhood next door has not only a crime watch association, but they also have a long-standing “hooker patrol”....nufff said. Weeks after a coworker and her husband moved into that neighborhood, they got their door kicked down and were burgaled. On Facebook I get almost weekly notifications or posts from people living there showing strange activity on their doorbell cameras, people stealing bikes out of their yard, etc. I don’t even know anyone in my neighborhood that has doorbell cameras.

Oh, and there was a serial killer last year that targeted residents of that neighborhood. The property taxes are five times more, and the home values three times more, then my neighborhood right next-door. So sometimes anonymity works in your favor. You pretty much have to know my neighborhood is there, or have any business in it. It’s a small block, tucked away, And there is nothing unique or distinct about it. And from the exteriors, and our cars, one certainly does not expect there to be anything good or new on the inside.

 Also, in America, racism is rampant. Our history is not that old in there are still repercussions from it felt in every corner. Anyone can be racist, but in America, personally, as a person of color I don’t really put much stock in it when a white person says their area is non-racist. The system in this country is not set up to be racist again whites, so just because people aren’t spraypainting swastikas where you live, does not mean lack of racist ideology; some of the most impactful and insidious forms of racism are well-hidden to those who are not a target of it.

JustK

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #34 on: March 26, 2019, 06:54:11 AM »
Here is the lesson I learned from being way too early to the gentrification party:  DON'T buy the only nice house on the block!  We may as well have painted a target on our front door.  (We were also called "the white folks" by everyone on the block, despite the fact that my then-husband was Asian.  I was the only white person on the block.)  Overall, safety wasn't a concern, though I did get a little too comfortable with the sounds of gunshots in the middle of the night (oh, that one was several blocks away, zzzz...). We did get to know some of our neighbors, who were good people, just without much money.  We loved our house and wanted to become part of the community.  But our house was broken into all.the.time (we were also the only people with real, steady jobs, so it was obvious when we wouldn't be home.)  We didn't have much money then, and didn't have nice things, but they would still break in.  It got very expensive replacing doors and fixing windows.  We lost sentimental things (a crappy camcorder, but with the tape of our son's first steps inside).  We had cement blocks thrown through our car windows because we always called the cops and people went to jail.  We had no problem, philosophically, with living in a poor black area.  But it was exhausting and depressing, and we finally moved after 4 years. 

I learned a lot in those four years.  I mean, I grew up poor, but we were Connecticut white people poor!

Zamboni

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #35 on: March 26, 2019, 07:26:32 AM »
Boots on the ground is what you need to do before you buy your own residence anywhere. There is no substitute for boots on the ground. Visit the specific street and surrounding area of your possible future purchase(s) at different times of the day and night over several days.  In cities, especially, one block can be perfectly fine, and the next block over is active day time drug trade with addicts passed out in the gutters all day. Don't listen to what other people say (because yes, a lot of what you hear will be based upon racism, bias against the working poor, or even just how the neighborhood used to be back in the day.) If you are comfortable, then it's fine for you. Before I bought my house, I talked to several of my current neighbors who were just outside their homes doing routine stuff.

If moving to a new city, rent until you have the lay of the land (like, at least a few months and probably should rent a year.)

DadJokes

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #36 on: March 26, 2019, 07:27:17 AM »
I think it can definitely vary. My current neighborhood is nice and hasn't seen much crime. A few months ago, someone was going through unlocked cars in driveways, but that's about it (and if you leave your car unlocked, you have no one to blame but yourself). We are also a few miles outside of town. I have no idea if our neighborhood has been subject to more or less crime than any other neighborhood in town, but if I were a criminal, I'd be more likely to target people who look rich than people who look poor.

I grew up in less of a nice area in a completely different state, and there was a lot more crime. I personally was the victim of burglaries on multiple occasions.

GuitarStv

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #37 on: March 26, 2019, 07:40:33 AM »
I live on the edge of a pretty bad neighbourhood of the city.  We've had three fatal shootings in a five block area within the past eight years that we've been living here . . .  which sounds really bad but it honestly doesn't feel all that dangerous.  Late night gang violence is a thing here - but I rarely find myself out and about after 1:00 am.  There are occasionally very loud parties with a couple hundred people spilling out into the streets getting drunk . . . these seem to be the type of occurrence that lead to shootings/violence so I call the cops on them whenever they come up.

Surprisingly, petty crime and home invasions are pretty rare compared to the rest of the city.  Car theft / smash and grab kinda stuff isn't too common either.  I suspect that since we're a low income area, the criminals leave our neighbourhood for richer places when they're planning on stealing stuff.

Sibley

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #38 on: March 26, 2019, 07:56:11 AM »
See, here I thought this would be a helpful thread, but half of y'all say that a "bad neighbourhood" can be fine, and the other half are like, "yeah, you'll probably get your stuff jacked."

I feel like I don't understand a way to navigate this problem any better than before, lol!

@APowers  - that's because it ISN'T easy. Sometimes the "bad" area really is fine, and sometimes it really is bad. I've personally seen "bad" areas that look bad visually because people can't afford to replace the roof, but people are decent, hardworking, do their best, etc. And I've seen "bad" areas that both look bad and actually are bad - lots of crime, etc. Same things can happen with "good areas".

The only thing you can do is actually research the neighborhood, talk to people, look at crime stats, etc.

former player

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #39 on: March 26, 2019, 08:06:07 AM »
Boots on the ground is what you need to do before you buy your own residence anywhere. There is no substitute for boots on the ground. Visit the specific street and surrounding area of your possible future purchase(s) at different times of the day and night over several days.  In cities, especially, one block can be perfectly fine, and the next block over is active day time drug trade with addicts passed out in the gutters all day. Don't listen to what other people say (because yes, a lot of what you hear will be based upon racism, bias against the working poor, or even just how the neighborhood used to be back in the day.) If you are comfortable, then it's fine for you. Before I bought my house, I talked to several of my current neighbors who were just outside their homes doing routine stuff.

If moving to a new city, rent until you have the lay of the land (like, at least a few months and probably should rent a year.)

Bit in bold: if several people are outside their homes doing routine stuff then it's not a bad neighbourhood.

partgypsy

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #40 on: March 26, 2019, 08:13:07 AM »
The first neighborhood we lived in Durham, well it was still rough. On the corner was a mart with an active drug selling activity just outside it. We saw some crazy things: someone climbed in our neighbors 2nd story window, and was throwing stuff in a trash can and dragging it down the street. We called the cops and they got the guy, but unbelievably in that short time frame he was able to fence/get rid of the couple things he stole (one was components of a stereo set). So the biggest risk was people breaking into your house to steal stuff to trade for drugs down the street. We had a dog that had a mean bark, so our house was only broken into once when we all were on vacation (and they didn't steal anything because even our tv was too lame to steal). The ladies of the night, rented a brick duplex on the other corner. My ex loved to stay up late and watch the various activities going on there. We did have people coming up to your house asking for money. That I did not like, because it was a little threatening. The most dramatic was when a car being pursued turned onto our street, the guy ditched the car and started running. We were sitting on our porch and our dog barked and the guy was so startled he wiped out in our front yard, but then recovered and tore around the corner. The police were right behind, stopped the car to block the street, and caught the other guy running in the opposite direction, and we directed them where the other ran (almost none of the houses had fences so you could cut between houses and yards to get to other blocks, etc).
Strangely enough, we didn't really feel that unsafe in that neighborhood. What prompted us moving was unpleasant interactions with a neighbor (the father and kid were abusing and neglecting their dogs, my ex talked to him and let him know he was going to call services on them. The Dad removed the dogs before the inspection, and then brought only one of the 3 dogs back. The dad held a grudge against us (especially when we facilitated the last dog getting rescued).
« Last Edit: March 26, 2019, 08:41:54 AM by partgypsy »

BlueHouse

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #41 on: March 26, 2019, 08:54:58 AM »
Crime statistics are one thing, but you can't always trust them.  In my city, the police are somewhat routinely underreporting crime or reporting violent crimes as non-violent offenses.  There are so many reporting mechanisms now, that people who are really watching will notice that a crime was reported in one medium, but never made the official crime stats. 

I suggest reading a local blog with input from actual people.   Almost every neighborhood in DC has a hyperlocal blog, with people from all over the city commenting and weighing in. 

charis

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #42 on: March 26, 2019, 09:06:55 AM »
I think it can definitely vary. My current neighborhood is nice and hasn't seen much crime. A few months ago, someone was going through unlocked cars in driveways, but that's about it (and if you leave your car unlocked, you have no one to blame but yourself). We are also a few miles outside of town. I have no idea if our neighborhood has been subject to more or less crime than any other neighborhood in town, but if I were a criminal, I'd be more likely to target people who look rich than people who look poor.

I grew up in less of a nice area in a completely different state, and there was a lot more crime. I personally was the victim of burglaries on multiple occasions.

To the bolded.  Obviously it's best practice to lock up, but sometimes people forget and putting the blame on the victim is the reason people are reluctant to report this type of crime, which increases if it goes under reported in a given neighborhood.  Entering a car illegally is clearly less serious than a burglary, but the victims of a burglary are no more to blame (legally or theoretically) because they forgot to lock the back door one day in a rush to get to work on time.

DadJokes

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #43 on: March 26, 2019, 09:22:27 AM »
I think it can definitely vary. My current neighborhood is nice and hasn't seen much crime. A few months ago, someone was going through unlocked cars in driveways, but that's about it (and if you leave your car unlocked, you have no one to blame but yourself). We are also a few miles outside of town. I have no idea if our neighborhood has been subject to more or less crime than any other neighborhood in town, but if I were a criminal, I'd be more likely to target people who look rich than people who look poor.

I grew up in less of a nice area in a completely different state, and there was a lot more crime. I personally was the victim of burglaries on multiple occasions.

To the bolded.  Obviously it's best practice to lock up, but sometimes people forget and putting the blame on the victim is the reason people are reluctant to report this type of crime, which increases if it goes under reported in a given neighborhood.  Entering a car illegally is clearly less serious than a burglary, but the victims of a burglary are no more to blame (legally or theoretically) because they forgot to lock the back door one day in a rush to get to work on time.

Maybe it's a by-product of the environment I grew up in, but I fully expect people to take simple precautions, such as locking doors, to prevent themselves from being victims of crime. I get paranoid that I forgot to lock my car/house all the time and double check it. So thanks for that, drug-addicted criminals of west Texas.

In the case of our neighborhood, it happened over the period of a week or two before the guy was caught, so people were warned about it and still many did nothing.

And just to take this off on a tangent, every house in our neighborhood has a two-car garage, but many people have so much junk that their garages are used for storage, forcing them to park in the driveway. That just drives me bonkers.

Zamboni

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #44 on: March 26, 2019, 09:47:52 AM »
Boots on the ground is what you need to do before you buy your own residence anywhere. There is no substitute for boots on the ground. Visit the specific street and surrounding area of your possible future purchase(s) at different times of the day and night over several days.  In cities, especially, one block can be perfectly fine, and the next block over is active day time drug trade with addicts passed out in the gutters all day. Don't listen to what other people say (because yes, a lot of what you hear will be based upon racism, bias against the working poor, or even just how the neighborhood used to be back in the day.) If you are comfortable, then it's fine for you. Before I bought my house, I talked to several of my current neighbors who were just outside their homes doing routine stuff.

If moving to a new city, rent until you have the lay of the land (like, at least a few months and probably should rent a year.)

Bit in bold: if several people are outside their homes doing routine stuff then it's not a bad neighbourhood.

Having lived in some terrible neighborhoods, I'm going to offer a counterpoint: the worse the neighborhood, the more likely people are milling around outside (often looking busy for an instant for the benefit of passers by, but perhaps just sitting on their porch.) So, you have to stop and talk to them . . . more than once.

My evidence is a snippet in this very thread, which the poster described as a bad neighborhood where they seemed relieved they only got broken into once. They spent a lot of time people watching for entertainment. The working girls, the neighbor dogs, and then this:
The most dramatic was when a car being pursued turned onto our street, the guy ditched the car and started running. We were sitting on our porch and our dog barked and the guy was so startled he wiped out in our front yard, but then recovered and tore around the corner. The police were right behind, stopped the car to block the street, and caught the other guy running in the opposite direction, and we directed them where the other ran (almost none of the houses had fences so you could cut between houses and yards to get to other blocks, etc).

People in bad neighborhoods often hang out outside. Kids play in the street or on the sidewalk. Older men who are trying to keep things less shitty might go "on patrol" walks. The dealers have it set up to look like they are just having a friendly little walk, or they have something right there with them "to do". "Naw, officer, just rolling out this here trash and then I saw my buddy and we stopped to shoot the breeze." Nobody has money to do much, and hanging outside is part survival, part entertainment in a bad neighborhood. Some people hide inside, sure, but lots of people outside in good weather.

In contrast, in the wealthiest neighborhood I lived in, only one person on our street even mowed his own lawn. Neighbors were at work or playing golf or away on vacations, kids were on traveling soccer teams or at ballet class. . . barely ever saw anybody outside except for a few dog walkers.

Cassie

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #45 on: March 26, 2019, 12:37:29 PM »
When young I lived in poor neighborhoods but never bad ones.

Schaefer Light

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #46 on: March 26, 2019, 02:22:13 PM »
Boots on the ground is what you need to do before you buy your own residence anywhere. There is no substitute for boots on the ground.

If moving to a new city, rent until you have the lay of the land (like, at least a few months and probably should rent a year.)
I totally agree.  Seeing what a place looks like in person is the best way to tell whether or not an area is going to be okay for you.  And "okay" differs from person to person.

RFAAOATB

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #47 on: March 26, 2019, 03:18:05 PM »
How often do you find good schools in a bad neighborhood?  I would focus on places with good houses, and good schools that have high test scores with low free and reduced meals percentages.

jojoguy

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #48 on: March 26, 2019, 04:53:59 PM »
I grew up in one of the most dangerous cities in America, Memphis, Tennessee. Random attacks and robberies are common. Examples in my own life: My mom was robbed and our car stolen in late afternoon in our driveway. My dad has been robbed at gun point twice. I was beaten up when I was 14 for being one of the white kids in school. I was terrified around that same time during the OJ Simpson trial. I overheard kids at school saying that they are going to "jump" every white kid in school if OJ is found guilty. Stuff like that still bugs me. I tried being friends with everybody. I stayed out of trouble. I lived in some bad parts of town growing up. Didn`t have much of a choice.

ilsy

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Re: Bad neighbourhoods?
« Reply #49 on: March 27, 2019, 09:33:10 PM »
It's funny, I was just trying to figure out "bad neighborhood" for myself. I live in the biggest city in our state (metro area), and in the A+ strictly white neighborhood (any black person in this neighborhood is a service worker, not a resident). BTW, they teach in schools that there is no segregation. But when there is a black person walking down the street, every neighbor has their eyes locked on him. I also have rental properties in what is considered a "bad neighborhood," considered by rich white folks. There are mostly blacks in that area, but probably about 10% of white people. I feel comfortable being on my own even at night in the "bad neighborhood" (I am a skinny blond gal). But I have had a few contractors who refused to work in the area. They do feel more comfortable when they see me comfortable being there. 
A funny thing: my house in A+ neighborhood was broken in (before I installed a security system and cameras around the perimeter). None of my properties in "bad neighborhoods" were broken in and they had very little security (poor locks, barely intact doors and broken windows). All rentals had copper plumbing, furnaces, water heaters intact after being vacant for more than 2 years and during the reno.
Another fun fact: in my current rehab (a total sh** hole) I found a pay check stub of one of the residents, she worked 3 miles away from my primary residence in A+ neighborhood. So, to put everything in perspective she had spent more of her awake time in A+ neighborhood, which is more than me. While I, working in Downtown, closer to her sh** hole, spend most of my awake time close to "bad neighborhoods." Plus, when I get applications for my rentals, I find that people who want to live in my "bad neighborhoods" actually work close to my primary residence or somewhere close by the "good neighborhoods." If I would have told any of my A+ neighbors that I go to the "bad" neighborhoods on my own and on my own will, they would think that I am crazy. I actually bring my kids over there sometimes. That might quilify for a CPS call in their book.
So, my conclusion, "good" and "bad" neighborhoods are some kind of artificial terminology that white folks made up to scare each other.