Posted on 05/14/2007 11:42:12 AM PDT by 3AngelaD
Harry Gault doesn't think of the small ranch home next door as a hot-button political issue in this year's Fairfax County election or realize how frequently his complaint is heard throughout the region. "I don't mind an Hispanic neighborhood," said Gault, 73. "But they've turned a three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath home into a nine-room boarding house..."
With the entire Fairfax Board of Supervisors up for reelection this year, this issue, which has raised ire in communities across the Washington area, has taken on a hard edge among voters riled by single homes that have been converted to house eight or 10 adults. Suddenly, multiple cars clog driveways designed in the 1950s for one or two vehicles. Trucks park on narrow streets, making them difficult to navigate in the morning and evening. And in the 24-7 service economy -- where nine-to-five is only one of several shifts and workdays begin and end at all hours -- workers and their vehicles are in the streets day and night...
Elsa DeLeon, a Honduran immigrant, was cited for overcrowding in February by county inspectors who found that her basement on Hanover Avenue in Springfield had been illegally divided into four bedrooms. She said, "If I buy this house, I can put my family in the basement," she said...The growing anger on both sides is palpable.
"I'm not an idiot," said Gordon, 37. He said he has complained to county officials about an illegal boarding house of between eight and 10 men in his Falls Church neighborhood of Lakewood for more than a year and a half. Two trucks and as many as nine cars park in front. He said a Fairfax zoning inspector told him that the resident of the house on Birchwood Road probably has "lots of drinking buddies."...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Lower middle class whites are the demographic most affected by illegal immigration - and they are also the demographic with the least political pull in DC right now.
It's already been in my neighborhood for years. A Mexican woman bought the house across the street from me about ten years ago and must have at least 15 people living there (all men - all Mexican - all lawn care workers). This is a small 3 bedroom slab house with no basement or second story. God knows how they all fit and God knows how they manage with one bathroom in the house.
Some of these houses are in upscale neighborhoods with McMansions. People who pay $1 million for a house don’t expect a rooming house for illegal aliens on their block, but that’s what some of them are getting. But you’re right, the majority of this plague is happening to middle and lower middle-class white and black people in NOVA, who have often lived in their neighborhoods for several decades, and nobody cares what THEY think.
Typical Fairfax County. Note the party affiliation of every single elected official interviewed...DEMOCRAT. And note the total disconnect between the county board and the homeowners interviewed. Such arrogance is amazing, but not atypical up there.
}:-)4
Would be a problem if personal hygiene was a primary concern of the occupants.
Reap what you sow lib.
About ten years ago we relocated from Fairfax Station back to Texas. We sold the Fairfax Station house to what we thought was an immigrant family of two parents and one child. Later neighbors told us there were at least 15 people living in the house along with their 8-9 vehicles. HOA regulations were violated on a daily basis. Talk about destroying property values, and if you’re familiar with that area you know housing isn’t cheap.
That is because they are the demographic that is shrinking the fastest. If you look at the white folks who are having children, its those who are both religious and white collar/enterpreneurial. Pols see the writing on the wall, and choose to ignore a shrinking section of the electorate, same goes for marketers. Can you blam them?
As long as people like W don’t have to live next to it, it’s not a problem.
“Would be a problem if personal hygiene was a primary concern of the occupants.”
And do you have firsthand knowledge of this?
Nevertheless, it is a crime that they don't enforce occupancy laws in this area.
Immigration laws have been ignored since the Carter administration, that is if you are an unskilled laborer.
Educated guess, they are urinating in the shrubbery at the back of the house. And you thought the smell was from cats?
It’s also because their skill sets, income etc. are roughly parallel to those of illegals. In many ways, they’re the same demographic group — though neither side notices it.
This kind of neighborhood crowding has happened in lots of places. It’s one of the side effects of unfettered illegal immigration. One problem appears to be the fact that illegals can buy property and can get mortgages regardless of their immigration status. why is this allowed, I wonder?
When you come from an area with NO toliets in the house, one is a real luxury.
Have first hand knowledge of what?
“Isn’t that part of VA populated by caring “progressives”?
Yes, and it is the part of Virginia where La Raza and the Dems have a very active voter registration program for the illegals. That’s right, the illegals. The county (Fairfax) government is solidly in the control of liberal Dems who are actively financing (with tax money) the illegal movement. Registrars of voting do little to stop the registration fraud, and it more than made up the 9000 vote victory of Webb over Allen last November.
Fairfax is a de facto sanctuary. There is a small town in Fairfax (Herndon) that had enough and threw out its pro-illegal mayor and town council last year, and the new guys are doing a great job correcting things, but they have to fight a county government that is now a branch of La Raza and the Chamber of Commerce cheap labor types.
And it’s coming your way soon, unless you do like Herndon and Farmers Branch TX and Hazleton PA.
A: A cheap dollar has allowed for the greatest subsidization of the construction industry in recent memory. Besides, ever since Fannie and Freddie were created, the goal has been to get as many people as possible into the “homeowner” category.
Wow, sounds like the house at the end of our street.
I don’t really care if lots of people live there, actually. The most annoying thing is the cars parked on the street.
As long as they’re legal.
Problem with our Hispanic neighbors is, within a month of moving in, 1 of them backed his truck right into my nearest neighbor’s mother’s car, and never admitted it. That didn’t make for much neighborliness.
My sister and her husband are hanging on until he's eligible to retire. They're leaving the state entirely.
Clearly the politicians don't care.
Yep. They even have many of the same tastes (all you can eat buffets, pickup trucks, love of spectator sports, etc.). Language, skin color, and attitude toward the nation are all that really divide them, immigration status aside.
The heydey of the lower middle class laborer was from the late 1940s until the 1970s. A combination of the lack of foreign competition in the post-WWII era, cheap gas, VA Home Loans, and low immigration rates led to high wages for this demographic. Those days were brief, have disappeared, and are never coming back.
I guarantee, Fairfax is NOT lower class.
Also the part of Virginia which voted Webb in and Allen out.
Personally, I don’t care much for “zoning”. I think people’s property is theirs, and nosy neighbors should stay out.
That said, yes, northern VA is being killed by DC LIBERALS as is MD. But like everything else, when their “progressiveness” gets a bit too close to home, they’ll move to a more conservative (”nice”) area and spread the poison there and change it just like northern VA and central MD.
Sorry Elsa, but when you modified your basement to make the four bedrooms, you were required to put a window in every one of them. Until you do that, you cant put your family in there. Legally, that is.
Honduras may not have building codes, but we do. And should there ever be a fire in your home, you will thank God for them.
Bingo! People tend to see that 30 year period as “normal.” It was actually an economic anomaly that created a lot of delusions and false expectations.
My prediction: Within the next few years a lot of people are going to get very, very angry when they realize just where they stand in society and that their current downturn isn’t temporary.
And not just because of illegal immigration. In the college town where I live, empty nesters in upscale neighborhoods are renting out their extra bedrooms to students, leading to many of the same problems noted here. I know that HOAs are anathema to many at FR, but local governments won’t always enforce the existing ordinances (as the article makes clear), and some group must exist to enforce neighborhood covenants.
I was a zoning inspector in Charlotte who had to hash out problems like this...man, I’m glad I don’t do that anymore.
“I guarantee, Fairfax is NOT lower class.”
You haven’t been in the Bailey’s Crossraods area. There are many, many, many apartment complexes that house all sorts of affordable housing types.
The Statue of Liberty says, “Bring us your tired, your hungry, your longing to be free...etc.”. Nowhere does it say, “ Bring us your diseased”. The reason for Ellis Island was to keep disease out of this country. If some immigrant in the past even had a hint of disease, he was shipped back and the general health of the population of the U.S. increased for it.
In 1945, the US had its manufacturing base intact and supercharged from all the WW2 production expansion, while much of Europe's manufacturing had been bombed to rubble. It took a while, but the world recovered from WW2
WWI as well, which wiped out a good portion of the male population. The first half of the 20th century was not a crowd pleaser for Europe.
It’s been years since I lived there. I’m sure I’d be shocked to learn what that house is worth now — I know I was shocked at what we paid for it way back when.
Post of the day. That actually made me LOL.
I'd like to blam them, I really would.
Perhaps I’m thinking only of Fairfax town, and not a whole county.
SSS
Actually, as Seinfeld pointed out, the SOL includes the terms “wretched refuse”, which doesn’t bode well for cleanliness!
That is how corporate America likes it. I had a buddy of mine who worked in hi tech. The company brought in four H-1B techies from China. Their salaries were half of what an American techie would make. After a year, the boss tells my friend he was laid off because the Chinese techies are trained to do his job. He wondered how these H-1B techies lived and discovered that all four of them share an apartment. His boss was not happy with the company’s decision, but he told my friend the job was his if he was willing to work at 40 percent of his original salary and find four Americans to share an apartment with him so he can afford housing.
Oh dear God. Bailey’s Crossroads is a hellhole. The last time I was there, I had to ride a Metro bus from West Falls Church to Alexandria, and I will never do that again.
He may not but I certainly do. We go to the little league baseball games. In the restrooms there the trash can is always full of you know what along with the paper needed to clean up with. There are signs on the broken mirror that says “Please use the proper facilities and place paper in the toilet”. This is in English and Spanish so there shouldn’t be an excuse to behave like animals. I doubt that the only place this is a problem is in public restrooms.
I can understand the frustration. I really can but...people need to be careful what they wish for. Apartments already do so but I really don’t want the government in my house telling me what my occupancy is. What happens if you have another child? Do you move or build on? What happens if a relative needs to stay a few months or you need to move an elderly parent in? Make parking on the street illegal and enforce zoning but keep government out of our bedroom.
Last I heard, the folks in Manassas are pissed now because their city is overrun.
Gordon, who works as a homeland security consultant
Pretty odd for a Bush-hating Dem to be working in the agency Bush created!
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