More than once we have been asked about the assumed “high” crime rate being published on Trulia. We try to explain that we have a population here of around 5,000 and Trulia doesn’t consider that we have thousands of tourists that have been added to the equation as residents instead of visitors. It makes the supposed crime rate higher on Trulia’s website.
Below is the response from one of our clients that has listed her lot with us to sell. She is a famous artist that lived in South Padre. You still see Pat Chapin’s mermaids and other nautical subjects in pictures, tiles, sinks and more throughout the homes here. We didn’t know she was also a writer but her response to the crime rate figures was so good, we wanted to share it with you. Here is what she had to say:
I thought maybe they were trying to factor in Brownsville, which has to get pretty rugged over a payday weekend. I can imagine how irritating this is, as the Island might as well be 100 miles from Brownsville, insofar as crime goes.
When you figure I moved to SPI in the late 70’s and lived in various places there for thirty-plus years, I was trying to figure the ‘crime’, not counting Spring Break, which is tragic or funny or annoying, depending on where you were while it was happening. Nah, I’ll count Spring Break too, that makes it more fair: in the first ten years we lived there, a tourist was murdered up the beach by someone in the crowd he came with; several times an attempt was made by obviously brain-dead people to rob the only bank back then; Troy got a ticket for drag racing his Porsche on the bridge, but it was a Port Isabel ticket; I wondered about that, as hit some high speeds on that bridge, but of course, took my foot off the gas before I coasted into PI. Some years later I was rear-ended by a tourist in my old truck, did more damage to their car than my big steel bumper; some kids stole things out of one of my husband’s unlocked work vans, but were picked up by the PI police and the stuff returned before 24 hours were up; in 20003 I had someone come in the back gate of my old place around 3:00 in the AM and I let my dog out on whoever it was, turned out it was two drunk twenty-somethings and my dog bit one, so I called the police to keep everything fair (if the kid hadn’t kicked at him, I don’t think Toad would have bitten him, and anyway, it was a scratch compared to what Mastiffs can do), and the cop who came arrested both of them as DIP. The place behind our house, imposing and used only on holidays, had at least four burglaries until somebody got smart and installed lights and an alarm which woke up the entire block. Some cabbies got in a fight over a fare somewhere through the years. I watched various people take up drugs and poor living habits throughout the years, but I guess they were careful, as they were never arrested although they obviously went downhill like they were on ice……….aside from theft, I’d say the Island is a slow pitch, and I don’t understand why the website wants to cut its own throat, but dumb is dumb, I guess.
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