Cheaper Housing Is Not Always Better.
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6/21/2008
Temecula in my opinion is an awful area to live in. We have lived here 7 years and if were not for the plummeting housing market we would of been gone 2 years ago, but that is another story. The reasons that make it an awful area is , There are a lack of not only high paying jobs for the skilled worker that has an education but also for women that are over the age of 35 that wish to work in an office. The only jobs you see are retail that do not pay worth a dime and therefore most people if they can afford the gas drive to either San Diego or Orange Counties. The other reason is an awful place is the fact there is no mass transit here. For a population of over 107,000 people and the only thing that comes close is a commuter bus that will take you south to the Oceanside train station if it does not break down or if there is room for you being they let every low form of life on there. It goes north to Corona but it too has it's downfalls. Add 5 hours to your workday if you must take this everyday. Poor quality of life. Then if you want to buy the monthly bus ticket at the mall, good luck getting one, being they always seem to have none and then you have to pay $2.50 each way for standing room being it is way overcrowded on board and they have no intentions of adding another bus. The kids here are lazy, rude and spoiled. All they do is skateboard in parking lots of shopping centers, walk around with long ugly unkempt hair (boys) and would steel the gold out of your teeth if they had the chance. Rare is it to see a young man washing the family car or mowing the lawn out front. No values here. They vandalize everything insight. I know being our Homeowners Assoc. dues have gone up $36 thanks to all of the vandalism in our subdivision and we now have a roving security guard to we pay for.
The schools are lacking being they have hardly any money to work with for expending on students. If you call $4800 alot of money for California schools then you need your brain examined. In most suburban Chicago schools they spend $9000-$10,000 on each kid. Then look at the low % of high school graduates in each high school in Temecula that attend college and graduate. Very low.
The other reasons that make this an awful choice is there is no large medical center nearby. If you need specialty care good luck, cause you will have to go to one of the reputable hospitals 75 miles away in San Diego like Scripps or 50 miles northeast to Loma Linda. I needed to have some specialty treatment and found the hospital in LaJolla to be so much more professional than any medical office here. They treated you so much better too. My husband broke his wrist 2 years ago and it took a week to get someone to read the x-rays being they said there is only person locally at this radiology place that does that. So he could not get his wrist set for 7 days that is outrageous.
The last reason that makes this place so bad is the high crime. There is an average of over 1100 cars stolen a year here or more. We saw it for ourselves while shopping at the mall June 2006. We helped the cops catch these 2 illegals stealing brand new Suburbans and Expeditions at the mall. They were let of out of jail the next day being the local lock up is overcrowded. Also be prepared if you have no felonies on your record to be called for jury duty once every 12 months or less. We get notices every year. When we lived in Santa Barbara we were called only once in 3o years.
Your car insurance we be higher here no doubt. We pay close to $2000 a year and have no tickets or teenage drivers and have modest vehicles. All of these factors are due to the fact the area has low paying jobs, lower educated residents, cheaper housing than most So Cal cities, and a non existent Police Dept. of their own. Yea, they contract with Riverside County sheriff's Dept, so good luck if you need help, the wait time is about 20 minutes if you have a major car accident. Hardly any law enforcement deterrents here. So if you have lived in Compton or South Central LA sure this place is look good but if you do not want to drive on average 3 hours round trip every day to a decent job, then don't move here!!!
Gloria | Temecula, CA