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Proberts160 t1_j8wn8wg wrote

DM me if you want. I’ve lived in the building you’re looking to move into for 5 years and I’m leaving this July for good reason.

I’ll save you from having to DM me lol.

The North Side is great overall. I moved here for the convenience. It’s nice being able to walk or bike places when the weather is nice. The farmers market is amazing in the summer. First Fridays are a good time. I love banjo night and I dearly miss Park House, but have fallen in love with ACB.

When I first moved here in 2017 I knew what I was getting into, I thought. It was kind of sketch, but if you have common sense you’ll be fine. For the first 3/4 years of me living here that assessment was generally correct. There were nuisance issues, all of my packages would get stolen, so I had to either mail them to my office, or an Amazon locker. People loitering outside of my building, sometimes being threatening but usually just annoying. People screaming and fighting at the bus stop outside my windows at all hours of the night. Rampant drug use in the park and on Cedar between East Ohio and the GE. All in all the kinds of things I thought I should expect as regular occurrences. I was generally unbothered and the benefits absolutely outweighed the negatives.

Things started to change in 2020. I just kind of noticed a mood shift which was definitely due to the pandemic, so not necessarily surprising, but jarring none the less. That was the summer the fireworks never ended. Just non stop every night for months there were people lighting fireworks. Then came the roving gang of dirt bikes and quads. I also felt like I got harassed more by strangers after 2020 - and peoples attitudes became more mean and slightly violent. In December of 2021 there was a shooting directly in front of my bedroom windows on Cedar Ave, broad daylight, was working from home. Shit was terrifying. Fortunately nobody was hurt - but it rattled me a bit.

Fast forward to spring of 2022. I had been away for the weekend visiting my parents out of town, and I drove back Sunday afternoon, probably around 3/4pm - nice sunny spring day. Parked my truck on Cedar and was walking to my passenger side door to unload my vehicle and then bang bang bang - what looks like a 12 year old is in the middle of Cedar about a block and half away with a hand gun the size of his forearm just shooting wildly into the GE parking lot. It was at this point that I started to seriously reconsider living here. I can deal with the crack heads and other shit - but I don’t want to hear, see, or worst case become a victim of a shooting.

Summer of 2022 was violent here. Many shootings within ear shot - many don’t make the news due to a lack of victims. But then the Sunoco shooting happened and that sealed the deal for me. I’ve been looking into where I’m going to move to since then. I had just resigned my lease before the shooting happened - so I’m stuck here for several more months.

Last weekend on Sunday morning around 11:30am I walked out to my vehicle to head to the gym. I get in - get situated and start my vehicle when I notice movement in my rear view, there’s three guys, two hanging back and one charging up to my driver door - I quickly locked the door like 2 seconds before this dudes hand hits my handle. He feels it’s locked and then runs away with his crackhead buddies. These dudes were going to jump me, a 6ft pretty big dude - at 11:30am on a Sunday. Sigh.

It’s really sad - because I do love this neighborhood. But after 5 years going on 6 of living here - I’ve been able to fully make the assessment that it’s just not worth the benefits. Of course, this is just my opinion. But I’m being honest when I say that if anyone I loved or deeply cared about lived where I do, I would worry about them. The chances of becoming a victim in this specific little section of the North Side are high enough to worry about it.

Hope this helps a little.

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subjiciendum t1_j8x2nq2 wrote

Sorry to hear that. I agree that the vibe has changed on East Ohio from moderately chaotic to a more menacing feel during that time frame.

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AgentG91 t1_j8xt6pn wrote

I rented a house in the war streets from 2018-2020 and this is incredibly accurate. It was great and then shit got weird in 2020. More of a nuisance, but it was a turning point. Can’t believe how it got worse

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samwisejonesy t1_j8zyflo wrote

I’ve lived on Cedar since 2017, and I am leaving the end of this month. This response is hauntingly accurate. There are multiple helicopter landings a day, and they are loud. They’ve woken me up from dead sleep countess times. Yes the farmers market across the street/local events are lovely, until you have to illegally park 10 blocks away from your home because all of your street parking is being used for people outside the neighborhood. The trees in the park are pruned so thin there’s a direct eyeline of people hanging out in them. The mental health/addiction crisis is evident everyday.

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thunderGunXprezz t1_j98hrfs wrote

So I'm curious as to why you picked that spot in the first place. Full disclosure, I grew up in Shaler where fortunately the crime was minimal in general. Aside from the random domestic incidents which really only ended in murder like 1% of the time, the rest of the crime could probably be attributed to the same morons I went to high-school with. Really all petty stuff. I was also frequenting other areas down that way for whatever reason. North side, Brighton Heights, Spring Garden, Millvale & Etna of course, so I did often venture out of my safe space.

Never in my life did I once consider anything south of Reserve Township as a place I'd want to live. I once worked with someone who came in from Westmorland County growing up in one of those cookie cutter housing developments off the highway. She told me they bought a house in the Mex. War Streets for like Half a million dollars. This was probably 15 years ago. I was astonished. Not only that but listening to her complain about really just general city living type stuff but also the crime and petty stuff like ppl smoking weed on the street and public urination etc. Like what do you expect?

I guess my suburban thought is, why the fuck would you choose to live there when you can spend the same amount and live in a suburb that maybe adds 20 min to your commute but alleviates dealing with all that bullshit?

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Proberts160 t1_j9bnhuw wrote

I chose to live here because at the time I was 27, I wanted to live IN the city, and I found a nice apartment that checked all the boxes here.

I also grew up in urban areas, and I used to skateboard all over the city as a teen in the early 00’s. Suffice it to say, normal city issues don’t really bother me that much at all, and are worth the conveniences of living in a dense urban area.

I can’t stress enough how much value walkability adds to my life. I fucking hate driving, and avoid it as much as possible. I love being able to walk basically everywhere I need to go for life’s necessities in 10 mins or less.

I like the parks, I like the river trails, I like living in a central location, I like being close to friends, I like having the city at my fingertips.

I just don’t like the odd chance that a bullet might hit me or one of my neighbors, and for that reason I’m leaving. I understand why people like the burbs, but that’s just not me. When I leave the city in a year or so, it’ll be to my farm in the middle of nowhere.

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