You have a situation on your hands which is not easily dealt with. Most big city police departments wont "deal" with these types of offenders for a number of reasons, including the cost to deatin them and process them. I suggest a couple things. Since private property is being threatened with break -ins etc, you may want to find out how much the HOA is willing to spend on a security guard. One can be hired for a couple of hours each night, or every other night or whenever. They are not inexpensive, but a couple of times a week, and it might take care of the problem. You can start up talks with the local homeless shelters or other organizations who are there to help with the homeless problems, and see if they can assist you. You can write the mayor and ask if you can have some time with him. See if you can get a police advocate, or someone who can come up with the details as far as how many times the police have been called, how many times the residents have had things stolen or buildings were broken into. You might talk with the local police officers on the beat you have and ask them for extra patrol - this is an iffy solution since big city police departments are so busy. You need to be creative in dealing with the homeless, especially those who have drug addiction problems. I understand your concerns and issues, they are real and they can be very scary situations. Community outreach is going to be your best bet in how to deal with the issues you are facing or hiring on site security

These are the things we love: cooking, being with friends, being with our dog. Things we don't like: the current kitchen. The current kitchen has: -limited counterspace -- we now have a kitchen cart that lives in the living room taking up space there. Regular use items are on top of fridge because of lack of counterspace. -microwave on the bottom shelf of cart so older family member can't use it and it is back-breaking to use/clean for everyone else, too (no counter space for it, no room for a second cart). -oven that is too close to the floor (the door actually lies on the floor when open) and opens directly into the main kitchen entrance. -Kitchen table with 2.5 foot clearance to counter -- we sit in this space and it is also a walkway (including use by person with walker). -People frequently have to exit kitchen to allow access to fridge doors or for other people to pass through. -26+ cu.ft fridge is packed to gills (plus we have a fridge and two freezers in the garage (a full height and a chest). -coffee grinder won't fit under current low cabinets so takes up a great deal of the prep space beside the sink. -When we grind grain, roast green coffee beans, dehydrate kale, or do the sausage making, folks are banished from the kitchen table interrupting meals. -We have a lot of fruit trees (orange, lemon, lime, pomegranite, apple ...). During each season, more implements compete for limited space. The pomegranite press juicer eats up more sink prep space, the apple mead sits out in the very limited stove area for months. Exasperated with friends? No -- their presence makes dealing with the kitchen oddities more than tolerable. The cramped space has never stopped the parade of fun cooking stuff like buying whole pigs and parting out to friends or making our own bacon and sausage (though it has sometimes been quite the circus: juggling the meat grinder, sausage stuffer, keeping lots of ice handy to keep everything icycold, shuffling people as trays of sausage are sent out to the garage fridges/freezers after being stuffed, etc). We love visiting the farms where we buy our food, learning how to kill and prep live chickens and I even once camped out at a Tenn farm for a week learning various fermentation methods (including making soy sauce). It's a pretty major part of our lives. Now, I was having trouble explaining to the master chef/homeowner front entry into kitchen was a bad idea. "It just isn't done" wasn't cutting it, and "it'll hurt resale" elicited a response of "well, can we get an estimate from a realtor as to how much it would devalue the house? Maybe it's worth it anyway". And there are financial and family connection reasons that the house will probably be his for the rest of his life. But I let him read your responses so he knows it's not just my opinion. :-) Cooking is a really big deal for us and is way fun. It will go on, no matter the size and layout of the kitchen. That said, the side south window may be on the chopping block and center hallway options are back.

You have a very inviting home. I would advise a rug with more color than what I see so far in your decor to avoid an all-greige look. After years of gray the modern trend now is toward more color, but a lot depends on your personal style I'm rather curious what the rolled-up carpet looks like. Try looking at traditional and transitional rugs on esale.com, a company that will allow you to return rugs without cost. e-bay also has a good selection of rugs. Since your furniture has solid colors I would investigate rugs with a pattern and different colors to bring some complexity and interest to your scheme. You can then repeat some of the colors in pillows. The pillows you show are rather drab and colors such as blue, terra cotta and leaf green would look lovely.

Silvia, you are such a shining star in my life. Thank you so much for caring about me. I know you love that area and are very knowledgeable. I've found a couple of lovely little beach towns on the southern Pacific coast that I'm going to visit to see if they're what I like, but I'll probably start out in a big city like Guadalajara to get my bearings, and slowly move down the coast. Puerto Escondido and Huatalco appeal to me. They have touristy parts (mostly seasonal), but there are also parts of the cities and beaches just for locals, so they get the best of both worlds. There will be enough English-speaking people during season so that I can socialize with them, but I won't get stuck in an expat enclave like Ajijic. I'm really into colonial and native American history and ruins, so I definitely am going to do some touristy things, but I want to immerse myself in the local culture with local people. I have a friend in Panama, so I may even make it down there to visit him. In SC, people who moved there always remarked that we had so many little festivals. I miss that, and it's something that I love about Mexican culture. They just celebrate everything! I've never been a scary person. My father used to love to swim out into the ocean and just lay there floating. I never could learn to float, because my body tensed up too much. He told me "Fear will cause you to drown long before a shark will eat you." I've taken that to heart my entire life, and have had some wonderful experiences because of it. But I still can't float. LOL As for transportation, as you know, Mexico has a wonderful transportation system that is unbelievably cheap. They would have to, since most Mexicans don't own cars. But most things are within walking distance. Everyone I know who moves there says they lost weight from all the walking and eating the fresh, ripe-from-the-tree fruits and veggies. I'm a fruit and veggie girl, so the mercados will be my heaven! I can't wait to eat the street food. I'm already learning to cook authentic mexican dishes so my system will be attuned to it when I get there. It's going to be my last great adventure, and I'll be sure to send lots of picture of all the beautiful flowers and plants, just like you do when you go on your adventures, which is actually one reason I started thinking about doing this. Well, that, and I'm just sick to death of the hate-filled, angry atmosphere in this country. I need to be around friendly people who love life and celebrate every minute, even though they are poor.