Background:
My husband (from Hesperia) first took me to visit Michigan 9 years ago and I knew then that I absolutely wanted to move there, not Hesperia specifically, but Michigan. But you can't move somewhere where you can't find a job. So time passed and the beginning of last year I had a preemie who spent 7 months in the hospital and our closest family was 7 hr drive away. I never want to be far from family ever again. Luckily, 6 months ago his job was made available to be done fully remote! FINALLY!!!! We can move to Michigan!!! Squeee!!!
About me: Grew up in the plains of Oklahoma and we currently live in a big city in the midsouth. Only cold winter weather I have experience with is Dec/Jan in Colorado. Oh and once I was in Ames, IA in dec. The wind was brutal.
My MIL lives in Gladwin, MI and this has kinda been my hub for the search. Gladwin and Beaverton are just too small. I did consider them for a very brief moment but that's a no. MIL works in Clare so I joined the FB group and searched on here and in the news and both Harrison and Clare seem to be kinda like a big republican meth house? Then I looked into West Branch, and honestly I can't remember anything about it. But when I was looking into West Branch, I realized that if I'm going to be living in town I want to be able to walk around and hop on my bicycle (I knew this but we had been flirting with the idea of living outside town so I wasn't thinking along those lines)
While I am looking into West Branch, y'all really got me worried about having Consumers or DTE and possibly moving there in the winter without 2/3 weeks of food and a generator. And someone made a comment on here about Bay City and having public electricity and they have the least outages amongst the 3, I think. So, I'm thinking, yea, okay. (While I started looking into BC, I checked out Midland but read about the damn failure further north and subsequent flooding. It looks like another for profit bought the damn and is fixing it up and I don't trust it. )
Bay City, I have read every damn post on here about Bay City. I downloaded their 2017 Master Plan and I hope that they are actually doing the things they said they would do. I do know that the crime is "bad" there. I've looked at the crime maps and I'm not that worried. I currently live in Memphis and the crime here is 237% higher than the national average. I know the crime rate per capita is higher there but (that brings me to me first question)
is crime that bad? And are the "criming" hours like 11pm- 4 am?
Beet Sugar - Does the whole town stink or is it specific neighborhoods? Does the wind need to be blowing a certain direction? What neighborhoods should I absolutely avoid to stay away from Beet Stink?
Water - Did I read that the expensive water tastes like shit?
Is it true that you shouldn't swim in the water in the bay?
Can you have backyard chickens?
What are the best hobby stores in the area? I don't care what the hobby is.
Is it true that the best way to produce shop there is to first go to Heinz Farm Market, then Paul's Produce?
I've read in here the best coat brands and cold winter gear for adults but are those the best brands for a 21 month old? How many layers should I plan on putting on the kid? Under-dressing him is a real fear.
I wanna make sure I've got this right about the bridges. Two of them are managed by the city and because of years of money mismanagement they are having to put tolls on them to be able to pay for repairs that would've been much less expensive if they had been doing routine maintenance. But they didn't have the money bc of the declining population since the 70's and therefore not having funds from taxes? Is that kinda right? Oh and the other 2 bridges are maintained by MDOT. And one of the bridges you can see the steel coming through the warn concrete. ????????? So, was the money mismanaged or was the declining population the problem? or both?
Since MIL is in Gladwin I was thinking about the west side of the city over by Nate Doan park. Thoughts on the area? I like that I can walk to the park and the library from around there.
I'm curious about a lot more but I'm getting sleepy.
Oh yeah, snow, when do you guys normally start seeing it and when does it get bad? What months do I absolutely not want to move there ?
I reached out to a local insurance agent to talk about these auto insurance prices y'all keep talking about. I'm curious to see how much more it will be.
If you respond, thank you! I will try to get back in a timely matter but I am in the middle of it with packing and everything. But I do appreciate all responses.
Rubs hands together, Glad I got this posted before you ban the moving posts. :)
