Beautiful region, but the city is meh.
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4/22/2012
I've lived in Eureka for six years now. The prices on housing are totally out of control. Good paying jobs are few and far between and the pittance wage paid by the chain stores doesn't even begin to cover actual cost of living here. Tweekers abound. This town is completely full of them. It's full of potheads too, but you don't have to worry about one of THEM robbing you the way you do with tweekers. The main strip going through town, the 101, aka, Broadway, is drug and gross motel central. Druggies walking the streets all day and night. Not a place to let kids run and play outside. The weather is pretty lousy. It's always cold and overcast, foggy and windy. Eureka stays under a cloud while surrounding towns are sunny. The summers are anemic, with high temps around 70 if you're lucky. It rains ALL winter and spring, and it gets old fast. Everything is always wet and moldy. By the time this place dries out in the summer, it's raining again. Crime is pretty high, as it seems to be all over America's dying small towns. The only plus in this place aside from the remnants of Victorian architecture that pocket the town, is the redwoods region it's self. You can drive 10 minutes out of town and be in the forest. If you want to move to this region, and you have the cash, I suggest places like Freshwater, McKinleyville, Ferndale, Fieldbrook, Hydesville, and Trinidad. Those are super cute places that are close to Eureka and are lovely to live in. The trouble is, you'll need to basically be a millionaire to live there. If you're a working class person, you're stuck here in crappy Eureka. After six years of this place, and no hope of being able to afford ANYTHING else here in super expensive Humboldt County, we're ready to leave. The exodus away from this place of high crime, drugs, no jobs, and crazy living expenses continues unabated.
Beth | Eureka, CA