Moving house and area after 22 years- help please

Hermoine

I_have_spoken wrote: »

There's no shame in 'white flight'. I did the same the last year. You need to scan the Census report for areas which are > 97% white British.

I think thats a stonking generalisation. I live in one of the boroughs in London where White British are a minority, and its absolutely fine - because, I think, its very mixed, with no segregated areas and also not very poor. I've never had any trouble, and everyone seems to rub along absolutely fine.

love_lifer

I've thought about shifting to the outskirts but I feel that bradford as a district is in trouble. I'm very confused, as you can tell...

bagpussbear

Hermoine wrote: »

I think thats a stonking generalisation. I live in one of the boroughs in London where White British are a minority, and its absolutely fine - because, I think, its very mixed, with no segregated areas and also not very poor. I've never had any trouble, and everyone seems to rub along absolutely fine.

If I was still living in London, I would agree with you on this. However having done the 'relocate out of london' thing, I can tell you that London is much better at having all the colours and races integrate and get along much better with each other, and are more accepting. I experienced very little trouble in London really, but up here (I live about 6 miles from the OP) it seriously is a different story unfortunately, the different colours/races do not rub along (at least in certain yorkshire areas)

phoebe1989seb

I can"t speak for the cultural issues and I'm not from your area (born and raised down south and furthest north I've lived is N Essex ) but I can speak from experience of moving out of an area where I'd lived most of my life to somewhere totally new.......and regretting that more research hadn't been done beforehand

DH and I had lived on the South Coast since we met (20 years) and, like I said I was brought up there (him too, but from a different area), then when DS went off to uni in 2007 we decided to sell up, pay off the remaining mortgage and buy somewhere smaller, mortgage-free. It sounded like the perfect opportunity to start afresh in a place of our choice. Our family home was fantastic - huge, period and perfect - but too big for two at 3500 sq ft.

Coupled with that DH had a hankering to work from home, so the world was our oyster. We also had pets - four cats, three were house-cats - and way too much stuff to consider renting. Instead we searched for a particular style of period property - and online found what we thought was the perfect house.......in Essex - no matter that we'd never even visited the county before!

Long story short, it was the biggest mistake we've ever made. The house was gorgeous, but the area and people were not so good. Within days we knew we'd made a huge mistake. After three years of purgatory we sold up - lost loads of money in the process - and bought in a much nicer place, the trade-off being the current house wasn't the style I was (Georgian) after and we now had less to spend unless we wanted to get back on the mortgage treadmill

I'd genuinely hate you or anyone else to make the same mistake we did - and whilst I appreciate your position with regards to renting, I would perhaps consider staying with family in the Manchester area to *try before you buy* if possible. OTOH, I can see why you feel the way you do about staying put - I don't think I could have stayed a moment longer in Essex. I don't think I went out on foot more than a dozen times in the three plus years we were there as crime was rife. All the while we were in the house it was fine - but you can't remain a prisoner in your own home, however much you feel it's *your area*......

Good luck with things, whatever you decide........

love_lifer

phoebe that's awful, sorry you had to go through that. I take your point however about doing some homework, its a salutary tale.

I feel like I have a different view each day- stick it out, stop getting upset/angry, move to Manchester, move to a 'nicer' area of Bradford, ignore, its fine...im so undecided. but you have all given me food for thought so I'm a bit further on than I was...
Thanks

ValHaller

love_lifer wrote: »

phoebe that's awful, sorry you had to go through that. I take your point however about doing some homework, its a salutary tale.

I feel like I have a different view each day- stick it out, stop getting upset/angry, move to Manchester, move to a 'nicer' area of Bradford, ignore, its fine...im so undecided. but you have all given me food for thought so I'm a bit further on than I was...
Thanks

Renting is good for this situation. If you are sure you don't want to be where you are, sell up and rent roughly where you think you want to be and suss out the area. From there, buy.

witchy1066

OP why not move on the outskirts of Bradford , that way you are still not going to far from friends and area you know , I have a friend lives in Pudsey, not sure how far that is from you) but its a lovely area , property does'nt seem to expensive either

sorry to hear you are no longer happy in your home
we have lived in our present home for 16 years and are now looking to move ,not entirely our choice , so I can empathise with your situation , hope all works out for you xxx

ash28

We moved almost 2 years ago from Berkshire to Lincolnshire....we had lived in Berkshire 25 years and our last house there for 18.

We decided to take early retirement and had no desire to remain in Berkshire.....it was never where we were going to end our days.

However we have children whose lives are there.....they almost fainted when we told them we were planning to move to Northumberland - where I'm originally from and I have lots of family there.

We decided on a half way house....equidistant really and chose Lincolnshire....we spent time there when we were younger and knew if it hadn't changed too much it would be fine.

We spent several weekends driving around and looking at different areas and picked our preferred locations......sold our house and bought one here.

We really like it - we're fairly rural - which we enjoy - the people are very friendly and we have really settled. Our children, grandchildren and other family members visit often. And we visit them

OH's sister in law lives in Bradford - Greengates....not too far from Leeds and not far from Shipley....it doesn't seem too bad....driving through parts of Bradford to her house can be like driving in a foreign country.

moneyistooshorttomention

love_lifer wrote: »

Moneystooshort thats been my approach but at the moment I feel worn out with it all-responding is pointless as I get angry and the people who have a go aren't up fora debate, they're ignorant and/or scared. And when people are abusive it's really hard to feel good and feel ok even just going to the shops. I can't screen everything out. You'd have to visit and witness just how bad/ridiculous it actually is. I've started driving more and using my local lovely park much less. And wearing headphones so I don't have to hear what's said.

What's actually happening? Are people making a habit of walking up to you and talking AT you in an aggressive way (even if you don't make any response at all)? What sort of things are they saying and doing and how often would you say you encounter this sort of behaviour in the course of an average month?

It sounds like people are just walking up to you and making negative comments out of the blue and, when you respond with the facts (ie "I'm perfectly entitled to have a dog and its normal to have a pet", "I'm perfectly entitled to dress in a normal way") they're just getting verbally aggressive back. If they don't respond to reasoned debate, then have you tried saying nothing and just ignoring them and what happens then?

Why do you think they're doing it? Do you get the feeling they are doing it deliberately to try and make you live in accordance with their Way of Life rather than our own or to get you to move out of area?

moneyistooshorttomention

BTW - thanks for explaining a bit Phoebe why you hated the area you moved to for 3 years so much. I was wondering...got it...didn't like Essex (and had never been there at all beforehand, so weren't aware of that), high crime rate. Must admit Essex wouldn't be my taste just because its not my "style" of countryside (and I've had one poster telling me how she doesn't feel the part she is in is "her area" anymore, even though it is).