Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Maravilla, how could anybody know what kind of operating procedures thieves are using in Costa Rica unless the police catch a good many of them and do a study. There isn’t anything available in the way of reliable stats or police studies. All we have are the anecdotal stories of locals and a the reports in the papers. Your neighborhood and indeed your house have been hit. For you, there is a severe crime wave and you have changed some things about how you safeguard your residence.
There are people on this site, David McMurray and Scott, for example, who say they have never been robbed. I can’t say with certainty they one day will be robbed just as I can’t say with certainty that I will one day be robbed in CR. All any of us have to go on are some common sense conclusions and opinions of locals as to who the thieves tend to be and where they are likely to operate. And those are just guesses.
In other words, the only statistics that really matter are the ones that I keep of my personal experience. The only behavior and life style that matters are my own. Until and unless I become a victim of crime there, my personal stats say crime does not exist in the Canton of Naranjo, Costa Rica for people who behave exactly as I do where I do it. Until and unless I become a victim of crime, my behavior and low level of anxiety about crime will not change.
Research…good idea. After conversations with the people I trust in my area, I know who to watch out for. So far, there are only a few locals, and they are older men who do not own guns, whose characters merit a wary attitude. Theyt aren’t dangerous. They are just not trustworthy. Outsiders would be the only candidates for armed robbery. I just don’t see any in my area.
I might get a hand gun some day and a wall for even more privacy. So we have less police protection in CR, far less than in Miami. So what? I still think we have far less crime in rural CR than in any part of Miami. And I keep computers and cameras at my Miami home. Why would I not do the same in CR?
How many incidents of armed home invasions have you heard or read about in the outskirts of the San Ramon area, Maravilla? I don’t know the exact situation of your home location, but where I will build is so far off the beaten path, I can’t imagine how armed thieves would even see my place let alone transport themselves and their weapons to attack it. I am assuming this sort of thing happens in the cities and towns and especially around walled in concentrations of gringos, not out in the farming communities.
Armed thieves would have to scout the back roads in their cars looking for targets. It would be more efficient for them to simply focus their evil efforts where the wealth is concentrated.
You deplore TV and ownership of computers, but you DO have expensive jewelry. There is some sort of disparity in your philosphy of living the simple life. People don’t flaunt computers or TV’s in public but public display is the very purpose of jewelry.
It seems to me that the very first thing to get rid of would be jewelry. THEN, maybe the TV and computer…..I don’t know a single person who has not experienced a theft of some sort no matter where they live. As far as things lasting a lifetime, I can’t think of too many things that do. Appliances, pets, cars, computers, TV’s etc., all these things are very finite. If they aren’t lost, destroyed or stolen, they will wear out qucikly enough anyway. Not much lasts a lifetime.
There are two aspects to this culturally ingrained Costa Rican problem of rampant thievery. One is purely economic and the other is emotional. The economic side is just simple math. Whatever you own will eventually have to be replaced one way or the other. Just accept that and figure the replacement cost of each item into the budget. The fact that things do not last a lifetime is not enough reason to deny yourself those things.
The emotional cost of suffering a violation of your home is another more difficult matter to deal with.
Maravilla,
I am sorry to hear about this loss of yours. But let me get this straight…nobody in Costa Rica can expect to own and keep a computer or a TV? Nobody? I see appliances and all kinds of durable goods being sold in the stores. Who is buying them? And why would anyone buy anything of value that can, and according to many on this site,WILL be stolen eventually?2BNCR and you are both talking about simply not owning certain things because those things will just get stolen and theft prevention is too costly or too much of a bother. Isn’t that sort of like having all your teeth pulled since they are going to fall out eventually anyway?
Caretaker cost of $5,000 a year? No it does NOT cost that much unless maybe you are talking about an empty house. I am talking about 30 bucks for a week end and maybe $5 for a few hours whenI go to the market.
As far as filling a house with “expensive stuff”, a computer and TV are essentials for modernliving. Period. Unless you want to embark on a real life adventure of living like people did a century ago in the States and still do in CR in many cases, you ARE going to have expensive stuff in your house.
Go ahead and live like many of the thieves live in order to not be a victim if that is your best solution. It seems rather more of a bother to do that than to simply lay out the modest money cost of security. Life style is the deciding factor here. I rarely go out when I have a home I like. I am older now and feel no need to be out on the town often if ever. If you are still in your 30’s or even 40’s and prefer to spend your time and money on travel rather than possessions, that is another life style decision with it’s own solutions.
I once made aliving as an in-house artist for an advertising company and I aspired to make art in my free time. This was 35 years ago. Over the years, I kept a half dozen of my paintings and they always hung on my walls wherever I lived. My Miami home was broken into once and my condo before that. The thief-thieves were a neighborhood teen(s).They took a camera and a few other small things. Of course, the paintings were never touched. Most petit thieves are not sohisticated enough to appreciate art nor connected well enough to get any value out of stolen art work.
Nonetheless, I empathize with your fears about losing the art. I am also apprehensive
about my own paintings when I move to CR. I think the only way to avoid the anxiety is to pay a trusted local to stay in the house WHENEVER you are absent, if that is possible. Gates, window bars and uniformed guards are no guarantee. This is a culture of petit theivery and is a regrettable price we have to pay to live in Costa Rica. Consider the cost of a Brinks alarm system in your U.S. home compared to a few bucks paid to a local in Costa Rica for house sitting.Moon, I live in Miami surrounded by reactionary, rabidly right wing Cubans. I am pretty darned sure I will be happier in Tico-land.
It is too difficult to find out the truth and this alone engenders mistrust. The internet is flooded with conspiracy theory websites. Just google “REX-84” or “FEMA CONCENTRATION CAMPS” and you will fall into a rabbit hole where you will find a confusing array of conspiracies and supposed facts to back up the theories.
All I can do is fall back on what I knew to be fact before the internet exploded opinions and information onto the scene and before the U.S. press was contaminated by corporate interests. Those facts support the point that our government is quite capable of jailing and otherwise persecuting citizens for very unconstitutional reasons.
The big question is whether or not immediate action is justified based on fear of government persecution coming to pass again. Do I run away to Costa Rica now…or wait for some future event to convince me? What would that event be? Most Jews in 1939 Germany waited too long.
I am not a libertarian wacko. I believe government is the most useful tool people have at their disposal for improving things. It can also be the most useful tool for enslavement.
I go by the title of the web site “We Love Costa Rica” to determine what the site is about. A legitimate topic might be why we love Costa Rica and what led us to that love.
One of the topics of this site, as far as I can tell, is an interest in the reasons people move to Costa Rica. Economics, politics, cultural aspects, environment…there are lots of reasons why people move to Costa Rica. Some of those reasons may be good ones, others not so good. Either way, it all falls under why we love the place and what moved us to that love.
Countdown,
What an appropriate nick name you have for this thread, huh? I like it.“HUHN WENIG” is how the web translates “Chicken Little” into German. I wonder how many Jews in Munich in 1939 were using that phrase to mock their fellow citizens of Jewish origin who were vacating the country in fear?
You may be correct. Who knows? Looking back, we may see this whole episode as a minor business cycle which passed quickly. I hope that is the case. In the meantime, I think I will consider alternatives.
Imxploring,
You can’t really believe that a bunch of beer bellied, gun toting rabbit hunters could possibly be a match against a modern army. In the first place, most of them don’ know anything about the constitution beyond the 2nd ammendment and so far have not shown any concern about the loss of some of their other rights. Who do you think voted for president Dumb-ass….two times?And secondly, most of them would be so mesmerized by all the shiny automatic weapons and uniforms, they would probably be too busy saluting the amercan flag patches to notice the bayonets in their faces.
As for your first point, it doesn’t take any organizational skills to employ the tactics of killing, maimimg and breaking things in order to instill fear into Americans. Hell, we deficate in our pants when Bush puts up an orange alert. Imagine what cowering sheep we will become when a tank is put on every corner of a major city?
Edited on Dec 30, 2008 04:37
While the Constitution doesn’t bar the use of military forces in civilian matters, the Posse Comitatus Act attempts to limit the use to vaguely defined legitimate issues.
http://ftp.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RS22266.pdf
In other words, we are in deep doo doo.Obama was the lessor of two evils for many, many Americans. I never considered him a savior. No such person nor legal document exists which could turn this country around in the right direction again. Only a broad, enlightened population could ever have done that. That population has not existed for at least several decades.
