Reviews & Comments
Riverside, CA
Worst Medical Care Around! Lots of Break Ins! -
1/7/2021I'm from Orange County (OC). I have had nothing but trouble since moving to Riverside.
1. The dogs are aggressive guard dogs.
If you want to walk or bike you will will have vicious dogs lunging at you and the owners will not stop them. The dog owners make a limp attempt to control their dogs on a dog walk. I have screamed in fear as dogs tried to bite me. The dog owners don't apologize or acknowledge what happened.
Forget about walking and biking to keep fit. It is not an option in the neighborhoods due to the aggressive dogs. You'll be bitten and mauled while the dog owner watches and does nothing to stop it.
Why the vicious dogs? Due to the high crime rate here. Cars are stolen and broken into. Houses are broken into. My neighbor had a home invasion. The theft crime rate is high, hence the need for vicious dogs.
2. Biking will get you killed.
I biked to the market and on my way home I was nearly killed by cars while I was in the crosswalk on a green light. The drivers drove into the crosswalk and I screamed as my life flashed before my eyes. No one apologizes when they do this. This happened to me repeatedly in one outing to the market. I gave up on riding my bike for a quick trip to the market.
The drivers are RUDE and will run you over. It is not a safe place to bike outside of your neighborhood.
In OC I could safely bike to the market, pick up groceries and bike home no problem. That is NOT an option in Riverside. It is simply too dangerous.
If you have a death wish? Simply start biking in Riverside and someone will run over you and kill you. They will do a hit and run and never stop to render aid.
3. It is nearly impossible to find a decent doctor in Riverside.
The doctors in Riverside are known for being rude, uncooperative and refusing to give a referral to a specialist. You will have to pay out of pocket to see a specialist.
The doctors in the IE (Riverside County and San Bernardino County, collectively known as "The IE" for Inland Empire) form medical groups. The doctors operate like a closed system. These medical groups are nothing more than a medical monopoly.
The medical groups own doctor's offices, urgent care centers, labs and imaging centers. You MUST go to their lab, urgent care center and imaging center or it is not covered by insurance. You can't just select whoever you want. It is not open like in OC or LA. Your options are severely, severely limited.
I have tried unsuccessfully, to get a referral to see an endocrinologist to monitor my thyroid disease. The first GP doctor said, "I won't refer you to an endo. I can just keep writing a refill for your prescriptions. No problem. You don't need to see an endo!" I told him, "No, that doesn't work. My medication is too high. I need an endo." He argued with me for 20 minutes and refused to give me a referral. He also tried to get me to take every vaccine and test known to man. My tests and vaccines are up to date, but he didn't care. Let's do them again! He is greedy. He is trying to rip off my health insurance carrier and me. This is common. This is not unusual. The doctors out here are greedy mofos.
You WILL BE OVER TREATED by the doctors in the IE. They will send you for tests you don't need to milk you and your insurance company. They are unethical, greedy bastards.
The first doctor I saw (Dr. Colin Christensen) refused to refill my thyroid medication until I did every single test and vaccine he ordered. I explained to him, I am not doing that! It is a pandemic and these tests put me at risk for Covid. He didn't care. I changed doctors.
Next doctor (Dr. Betina Greer) also demanded I run a whole bunch of tests: blood work, urine tests, feces tests, multiple scans before she would agree to refill my thyroid medication. I jumped over that hurdle. Then she demanded I see her again to get my medication refill. I am still waiting on my referral.
The doctor holds your refills hostage until you meet their demands. Once you meet their demands? You STILL don't get the referral. They come up with even more roadblocks and more tests you must run. Lots of excuses, but no referrals.
You will ONLY get a doctor referral to another doctor WITHIN that medical group. If there is no specialist for that medical problem they will refer you to something close.
Example: You need a dermatologist for a suspicious looking mole? You want to know if you have skin cancer? A cardiologist will do! You don't get a referral to the specialist you need.
I had to get my health insurance company involved. My health insurance company tried to push through the referral. The doctor's office receptionist called me, threw attitude, yelled at me and lied her ass off. I caught her in lies and she was shocked I caught her. I caught her because my health insurance was keeping me up to date on developments. She lied.
I STILL do not have a referral to see an endocrinologist. I have been trying to see one for 3.5 months. My health insurance company is pushing and calling, but the medical group refuses to budge and give me a "real referral" to an actual endocrinologist.
If you look at the reviews for doctors online you will see they are crappy. The doctors in Riverside are doctors who barely graduated medical school and this is why they ended up in the IE. These are the worst doctors imaginable. If you want a decent doctor or hospital? You must travel to OC, San Diego or LA and pay out of pocket.
Basically, medical care dies in the IE. This is NOT the place to look for decent medical care. It isn't even a C average. Medical care in the IE is a D or an F average.
I plan to move back to the OC after the pandemic because I don't want to be attacked by vicious dogs when I walk, run or bike for fitness and I want DECENT MEDICAL CARE which is impossible in the IE.
4. My house was broken into while I was home. That was scary AF.
My neighbors told me this is "normal" and the cops don't do anything about it.
The high school kids come into the neighborhood (across the street from the HS), hop the fences and break into the houses. The cops don't care or do anything. The HS kids know they can get away with it, so they are bold. Neighbors tell me, you will see kids hopping fence after fence to break into the houses. The kids are unafraid. Eventually, one of them will be shot by a homeowner as these are gun toting people.
Riverside is super conservative, Republican, gun toting, Trump supporters. Lots of middle aged men driving Harleys. Lots of pickup trucks. Lots of run down RVs.
My neighbors are trades people: glass installers, tile setters, work in construction, work for the grocery store, etc. Not many people are professional people, white collar type of people. Not a doctor or lawyer to be found in my neighborhood and I am not used to that.
When I called the cops about the breakin they refused to come out, take photos or take fingerprints. They didn't show up. They took the report over the phone and the report died. That was the end of it. The cops out here don't actually do anything. It is pointless to call the cops.
There are too many homeless people out here. There are people living in RVs who are homeless. When the local bike shop told them to move from the parking lot the homeless people shot out the windows of the bike shop. Each time a business owner tells them to move on they shoot out the store windows. The cops do nothing. Everyone knows who they are, but nothing is done about them. This is common.
My neighbor told me they had a home invasion. The people pried open the side man door to the garage with a crowbar, entered the garage and then the house. The only person home was a teenager. He was in the shower and didn't hear them breaking into the house. They tied up the kid in the house after pulling him out of the shower. They robbed the house and left the kid tied up when they left. He was crying when his parents got home. Poor kid.
5. Lots of drug addicts out here
Lots of drug addicts. A high school kid recently OD on prescription drugs he bought on the street. He died. This is not uncommon. Lots of drugs are readily available. If you have kids? They will be exposed to drug early on.
The high school kids are taking drugs. They need money to pay for drugs, so they break into cars and houses.
There are homeless couples pushing their shopping carts around. They are methamphetamine addicts. You can tell they are meth addicts, due to the missing teeth.
Lots of people on OxyContin and then they drive. This may explain the high rate of traffic collision fatalities.
6. Your car will be broken into. Get used to it.
Don't keep anything of value in your car because the window will be smashed to get what you left inside the car. You will be paying for a new window.
If you are lucky they only break the window and leave the car.....
7. Lack of decent restaurants
The restaurants tend to be subpar and not many options. If you like ethnic food like Thai, Persian, Indian, Vietnamese? You are out of luck.
8. The city is laid out in the strangest way. It doesn't make sense.
Riverside City Council and City Planners did a piss poor job in laying out this city. The traffic patterns are bizarre and don't make any sense. Even locals admit, yeah, they ****ed up.
The city is hilly and there deep drop offs on one side of the street. It is sort of like a cliff on one side of the street. It is odd.
The houses have big, huge front yards that no one uses and tiny backyards. The backyards are on a slope and not useable.
9. Education is crap here
I have met people born and raised in Riverside. They talk like they grew up in Compton, Watts, Inglewood or South Central LA. They don't know how to conjugate a verb to save their life. The white people talk in ebonics and act like they are from South Central LA (it is weird).
The education system is subpar and really awful.
Ex: People say, "I be goin' to the store." "I didn't done that!"
They don't speak proper English.
10. The white people are standoffish and cold.
As I walk in the neighborhood I greet people. Hi. Hello. How are you? You know, being polite. The white people turn their back, act like they didn't see me and refuse to greet me. They are cold and aloof. The white people are standoffish.
The Latinos, Asians and black folks are cool. The white people suck! I am white. If I say they suck? They suck! The white people are not going to speak to you. They will look at you with suspicion.
Due to the break ins being so prevalent I had difficulty getting my neighbors to open their door when I knocked and asked if they had video footage of my break in. They don't want to open the door. High crime means I don't trust you! I am not opening my door unless you are the FedEx guy!
It is incredibly hard to make friends out in the IE due to white people being so cold, aloof and standoffish.
11. Fires
OMG does this city burn and burn often. One fire burned for 56 days. It was 56 days of black skies, raining down ash and air that made us all choke. I felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest. I couldn't breathe due to the bad air. I ended up with a migraine for a week due to the bad air quality. I couldn't breathe.
Hopefully, you don't lose your house or business in the fire...... That is a distinct possibility. You smell the fires before you see them.
If you are okay with bad air? Move here! Be prepared to end up in the doctor's office and you will NOT get a referral for better medical care. Be prepared to beg your doctor for an asthma inhaler and be denied.
12. March Air Base Noise
The noise from the flights out of March Air Base is bad. OMG! They fly so damn low and buzz the houses. They can do this because they are military and not reporting to the FAA. The military doesn't follow the FAA protocol and they fly way to F - ing low! It is noisy AF! It is annoying. Commercial pilots and private pilots can't fly this low because the FAA would fine them.
13. Everything is so spread out.
You have a mile of orange groves and then a shopping center pops up. Then it is several miles of avocado groves. Then a shopping center pops up. It is an odd patchwork of how things are laid out. Nothing is close by. You must do a lot of driving to reach anything.
This used to be all agriculture (orange groves, avocado groves, etc). As people moved here and city and county was developed in a hopskotch manner that doesn't make any sense. Nothing is convenient to reach it easily.
Bottom line: It is cheap in the IE, but it is an unpleasant experience. It is better to pay more and live in San Diego County, Orange County or LA County.
Two thumbs down?? ??