Moving to the country

[WNJ]

Just think of the DOPE PLANTS....

Fixed that for ya

[Voltaire]

no, but since you have:

lifestylers are fucking gay, too. They're just townies that dont live in town. Ignorant, arrogant, feckless gits with no fucking clue and expect that you're going to give them firewood/ tow them out/ use your stockyards / let them graze the thirty horses they got on trademe for a dollar for fucking free because it was such a good deal, then they'll moan about the fucking weather (in every fucking season, repeatedly, seriously, weather will happen for as long as you're alive, get over it) and complain that the lattes round 'ere arent so good.

Dont be a lifestyler.

Totally jealous of you country folk. Must cut into quality internet time growing all those veges.

[Duncan74]

So I'm tired of shitty neighbours and my general misanthropic nature is causing me to look into shifting into a lifestyle property somewhere within 30mins drive of Tauranga.

After 5 years in the avenues, we moved out to Minden almost 18 months ago. The 'list' of requirements I had were-
1) Not in earshot of a neighbour
2) Not in eyesight of any neighbour.

The OH had some stuff about number of rooms, etc..

Interestingly then from here it's quicker to get to the mount than from the far end of papamoa. Takes me 25 minute to CBD. If I cycle. 13 mins if I drive / ride.

For us it's been fantastic, but we spent a long time finding the right place. As alluded to above, then be realistic about the land you get and what you will do to it. We chose somewhere with lots of lawn which is a 45min task on the ride on every 10 days in summer, 2-3 weeks in winter. Then add in a dedicated weekend every 6 months and the rest of the 'estate' is kept in check.

The biggest problem was when I fecked my ankle and couldn't drive for 4 months, no public transport and would have been easier if I was in town. However, silver lining is I worked out I could ride a scooter, and hence my presence on this forum.

Being honest then I've spoken to the neighbours a few times, but probably less then when in the avenues. And it's fantastic that I can't hear those neighbours flushing the loo, coughing, or watching TV.... Ok, you can hear one occasionally shooting the wabbits, but the rest around here are retty much townies / lifestylers like us. FFS one gets one of those food box meal deliveries every sunday ;-)

Not sure what your budget is, but 30 mins from TGA gives you a LOT of options. Omokoroa, Te Puke, the hills up welcome bay, etc. Omanawa had some good properties at a wide range of prices, and is often overlooked. Also, Paengaroa is cheap as chis at the moment. Yes, I know you'l be paying $4 a day for the toll, but that's $80 a month which is a small fraction of what you'll be saving on rent / mortgage in town'. However, does depend on your household composition. If you've got kids then don't forget you'll be spending your whole life taxiing them around.

[Dadpole]

Just beware of what happened to us when we moved to the sticks. Rellies come and stay for days...

[Blackbird]

Just beware of what happened to us when we moved to the sticks. Rellies come and stay for days...

Ditto....... Relies, other bikers, sigh......

[Akzle]

Totally jealous of you country folk. Must cut into quality internet time growing all those veges.

i give a fuck!!!





//no, wait. I mean the other thing.

[Akzle]

If you've got kids then don't forget you'll be spending your whole life taxiing them around.

your doing it wrong.

Also. They learn to drive when they're about 8. So they can drive you home from the pub, and fackoff by themselfs.
Or get them a hoss.

[Mike.Gayner]

Thanks everyone, appreciate the insights. Keep it coming.

Duncan74 - you sound just like me, with the exception that we're a reasonably young childless couple looking to have kids in the near term. That's the #1 issue holding my wife back from this idea.

Akzle - you thoughts are illuminating. Unfortunately I'm a 100% townie looking for the "lifestyle", which will hopefully include few to no animals, so I'm just the kind of person to piss you off. On the other hand, I'd be happy to lease a couple of acres for kiwifruit/cropping/grazing to a neighbour to save myself the effort of mowing a lawn.

My greatest desire is distance between myself and neighbours.

[Duncan74]

your doing it wrong.
.

No, I'm doing it right, I was just mentioning the kids thing in case that applied to the OP on the basis of comments from colleagues. However, the lack of kids does also mean that none of the clocks on the microwave, oven, etc show the right time for 6 months of the year

[Duncan74]

we're a reasonably young childless couple looking to have kids in the near term. That's the #1 issue holding my wife back from this idea.

Cuts both ways. Until they are at school, then aparently it's less of an issue. However, someone else that did jsut that, moving to Whakamarama just before child 1 had a bit of a struggle. Essentially he was at work and travelling, and she was a bit stranded out in the middle of no-where seeing no-one. I can relate to this as after my ankle op I was workign from home for a few weeks, and even I was going a bit loopy by the end as I'd not seen anyone for best part of a week and was starting to have deep and meaningful conversations with the wild rabbit and pheasants that live in the garden.

[sidecar bob]

I think living in a shit neighbourhood is making you think town is a crap place.
If you bought in decent 'hood, most of your problems would go away without the need to go bush.
Lower socioeconomic areas are full of inconsiderate shitheads.

[Mike.Gayner]

I think living in a shit neighbourhood is making you think town is a crap place.
If you bought in decent 'hood, most of your problems would go away without the need to go bush.
Lower socioeconomic areas are full of inconsiderate shitheads.

I live in a decent neighbourhood. I'm just very intolerant of people in general. It's my nature. Plus the renters behind us are shit heads.

[Duncan74]

I think living in a shit neighbourhood is making you think town is a crap place.
If you bought in decent 'hood, most of your problems would go away without the need to go bush.
Lower socioeconomic areas are full of inconsiderate shitheads.

Biggest grief we had was from the neighbours and the neighours kids. Let their dog shite on our lawn, and their kids kept having wild parties every time the parents went with 100 pissed 16 year olds pissing / vomiting in the bushes and music to 3am. We were only renting, but our place was one of the cheaper in the street and sold for over $1m once we moved out. The neighbours place was way up from that as they had tennis court, pool, etc etc.. Having lived in both high and very low SE areas, then I'm not sure that there's a clear difference. Perhaps the noise in teh upper SE areas was constrained more to a weekend, but I was less pissed about being tired for work on a weekday compared to trying to get up at 4:30am to go to a race on 1hrs sleep on a weekend.

[rambaldi]

I think living in a shit neighbourhood is making you think town is a crap place.
If you bought in decent 'hood, most of your problems would go away without the need to go bush.
Lower socioeconomic areas are full of inconsiderate shitheads.

Fucking accountants with their straight pipes getting ready for their Sunday cafe run. I should have gone somewhere less affluent if I wanted a bit of a lie in.

[Smifffy]

I moved to the country end Aug. I was still living in a rural town prior to that, so not city living by any stretch. Now I'm closer to a 'city' but much further from neighbours and the nearest shop.

Our road has a number of black rubber snake tracks down it. Latest about two weeks ago. About 6 months before we moved from town we had a drive by shooting at the end of our street.

Just under 2 Ha, so far done nothing with it. On tank water, and this weekend has filled the tanks to over-flowing, will see how this El Nino pans out.

I have a shitload of shed space, which I never had in town. The council doesn't over-spray my vegie garden like they did in town. I don't expect to have to get the vet to remove another slug gun pellet from my dog's back out here - he's already made friends with the RD man.

I look over the top of my PC monitor right now, and I get an awesome view.

My commute to work has gone from 10 mins to just under an hour, but all highway driving. I'm riding the bike more, since it's worth getting geared up to ride it to work.


When my house in town sells, I'll tell you about the bad stuff that happened there.


Buy land, they don't make any more of it, and most of it is being sold offshore, and will never be in local ownership again.