8 Tips To Surviving A Rough Neighborhood

When we’ve made the leap and have moved to a new location to start a new life, there’s a world of possibilities ahead of us, but one of the things we can neglect is the overall neighborhood itself. We may have fallen in love with the house and made mental plans to ensure that we live our best lives, but there can be things that throw us off course, especially when we’ve picked the wrong location. When it comes to living in a difficult neighborhood, what are the things we must consider?

Proactively Prepare for Emergencies

Nobody wants to feel like they are living in an incredibly stressful environment where there could be burglaries on a regular basis, but it is essential that we have emergency contacts ready based on certain worst-case scenarios. If you come home from work to a broken window, ensuring you have those windows replaced as soon as possible will take the stress out of the equation.

Get to Know the Best Route Home

A neighborhood may be unsafe in certain areas but okay in others. It’s about speaking to the people in the local area if you can and knowing the right ways to get home. It’s something that we should all understand and communicate to our kids as well to ensure that they are able to get home from school if you’re not able to collect them. The best route home will usually be in broad daylight or if you’re going home in the dark, away from lanes or shaded areas. When walking home, it’s important to be as quiet as possible. If you’re walking home in heels, this is very impractical and incredibly noisy, meaning that if there is a shady character looking for easy prey, you won’t be able to run away as quickly. Always having a spare pair of sneakers ready for your walk home is going to ensure that you can get away quickly without running the risk of falling.

Get to Know the People in Your Immediate Area

One of the best ways to increase your sense of security is to get to know at least one person in your local area. They are people who will give you far greater insight into the best ways to navigate living there, and getting to know them on a personal level may also help you to feel less alone. You may have moved to a location with your family, and you could easily feel like the new people, and this means that you’ve got to wait it out and almost feel like you need to be accepted into the community. Getting to know somebody means that you can find a few tips and trips to get on better with the locals.

Learn Some Self-Defense

The reason self-defense classes are so popular is because they are providing a real practical solution in the modern world. It’s not something we want to necessarily think about, but it’s always worth having an abundance of skills in your back pocket should something happen. The best type of self-defense course for people in tough neighborhoods is Krav Maga. This can teach you a number of techniques when someone is coming at you with a knife or a gun, and while we don’t want to think about this worst-case scenario, having this knowledge could make all the difference.

Get Loud! 

Part of living in a tough neighborhood is about sending the right impression to others. If you come across as a shrinking violet, this could mean you are an easy target. And while we all want some sense of privacy, if you ever encounter somebody in the neighborhood who may attempt to harm you, you’ve got to draw attention to yourself and act as crazy as possible because this will cause the person to move away or target someone else. As they will likely get nervous if others are looking in your direction, they will have to back away. There’s always the benefit of having extra security in your back pocket, such as a Taser or even a rape alarm.

Secure Your Home

Even in the worst neighborhoods, burglars will want to find easy targets, and making sure that your home is as secure as humanly possible will deter them. You’ve got to avoid advertising yourself as an easy target, which is why you should keep anything valuable out of sight and away from your main window. You could also install curtains so you can reduce those nosy parkers. You should also secure your entry points by keeping your doors and windows locked at all times and installing high-quality door locks, as well as investing in a security system. If the neighborhood you live in has been subject to a number of break-ins recently, it’s wise to lock up any valuables that thieves always go for. You can easily get a high-quality home security system for cheap. Monitored home security systems are incredibly affordable and have been shown to deter crime.

Be Alert

We shouldn’t feel like we have to be constantly alert when we are at home, but if you live in a higher-risk neighborhood, you should know the safe route home but also know the things that make you an easy target. For example, being distracted by your phone. In fact, you should avoid being distracted at all costs.

Think About the Long Term

You may wonder if living in this neighborhood is worth your while in the long run. It may have been the only property that you could afford, and the best thing you can do in this situation is to prepare your home so you can sell it on. You can be proactive at this point by investing in your home and making it a far more presentable property to appeal to others. 

Whether it’s a rough neighborhood that has very high crime statistics or it feels like a dodgy area, we can all benefit from some of these tips and tricks to ensure that we are getting the most out of our time there.