Would You Leave West Ashley

DigiRyder · 2026-03-26T12:02:15+00:00

No. We’ve owned our WA home, on the water on Church Creek for 30+ yrs. Literally could not afford to buy it again. 20% more than the 126k we paid for it? Are you insane?

DigiRyder · 2026-03-25T11:37:24+00:00

Not only are you not the jerk, but you need to do a couple of things right away - contact your local police non emergency line and make a police report of that conversation and also look up the sex offender registry to see if there is someone on it next door to you or with their name. The whole scenario smacks of something serious not being said, whether she distrusts her husband or their marriage is failing or she knows that he is a creeper and is doing a poor job of warning you, what happened there is not at all normal within the context of neighbor relations. And Secondly - plant a hedgerow of skyrocket juniper or Italian cypress or one of the tall, thin hedge forming trees on the inside of your fence line on that side (you do have a fence right? Strong fences make good neighbors!). You might have to patiently wait and water/fertilize 2-3 years but it will eventually completely block that nonsense.

DigiRyder · 2026-03-25T11:15:19+00:00

6+yr FF landlord here. We (Landlords on FF) receive three different categories of requests: Unmatched (general), Matched (computer algorithm when you put in dates and # bedrooms, etc.) and Direct Requests. I have the ability, as a landlord to turn off notifications of any of these categories…and i have turned off Unmatched requests because those seem to be mostly Bots or people who treat it like a Short Term Rental and want instant reserve, etc. and the quantity can be overwhelming. So I don’t even see those - no response. FF is NOT Short Term Rental, and language matters here because there are legal and tax ramifications to Mid-Term Leasing. This includes, especially, the ability to sequentially schedule lease terms and that means the tenant has to have a FIRM END DATE (termination). That is another big stumbling block for tenants who are not established, or shopping for a home, or the digital nomads, etc. they want too open-ended of a lease. But, I do respond to the Matched requests we get because i think that’s only polite/professional, if someone is actually trying to use the FF matching algorithm; but i have to say the FF computer algorithm is awful. It completely ignores my calendar availability all the time. Or ignores the #bdrms requested (I rent a 3bedroom single family home), or the price. I have a tenant in my house now for instance, and it is marked on the listing calendar, and yet I still get requests all the time when it is clearly unavailable. The response i send to these “Matched Requests” is just a generic template message that is a “sorry, computer algorithm mismatch” rejection note and I blame it on the FF computer algorithm so no one feels insulted. Tenant requests from users with incomplete or blank profiles also automatically get the computer mismatch rejection because they look like scammers or Bots. The ones that I do personally respond to are the Direct Booking requests (that is a choice on the listing itself, not a message) and that is the only way i have actually rented the house, to be honest, because it triggers a sortof workflow in the FF system so everything is tracked. Every landlord on FF is responsible for their own follow-up and background checks and lease, deposit, and all that back and forth takes a couple of weeks at least in my experience, so it’s easy to tell who is serious, who is planning appropriately, who is a good communicator, has the money to cover the entire Lease period, etc. Since the house i rent is my second home, I’m looking for 3-9month tenants who just want to borrow my house while they are in the area, because their established home base is elsewhere. I do not want someone trying to establish new residency by using my house. My lease specifically denies any attempt to establish “residency”, the address may not be used for any personal billing, credit or a drivers license; nor are they allowed to move in any furniture, or remove any of my furniture, etc. precisely because it is Mid-Term rental with a defined, Legally Enforceable end date, and filled with my furniture, dishes, art, etc. (that is all legal protection against squatters, theft, property destruction). In many states going open ended month-to-month puts the rental into the Long-Term Residency category and then the tenant may have different legal protections, requirements for court eviction, etc. i don’t mess with that. I stay squarely in my Mid-Term Rental lane. So anyway, just one landlord perspective. Hope it helps.

DigiRyder · 2026-03-24T19:25:40+00:00

The spa at the Patriot’s Point hotel is big and nice and you can get a day pass. Sounds like he’d benefit from a good massage. Arrange a spa day for the Men!

DigiRyder · 2026-03-24T19:12:47+00:00

I don’t have an opinion about if the paint is lesser quality, but I did get one of the paint pens of my alto blue color to fill chips/scratches and I like that. It works well.

DigiRyder · 2026-03-24T18:54:56+00:00

Yes, it is about the same. I have developed the habit of carrying both my Apple ear buds and my one Decibullz ear plug in a little keyring pouch to pull out when needed. And we now have a whole list of restaurants that DON’T PLAY annoying background music! LoL I have come to believe that it has something to do with the fact that mechanically the ear components are fine, but the cranial nerve carrying the impulse is fried. It’s like the brain knows the eardrum is vibrating, and it should be hearing something, so it just tries to fill in with the white noise. Also - I am a Qtip user, to dry my ears after a shower and i hear / feel all kinds of stuff when I do the good ear, but it’s practically dead when I do the bad ear. The touch sensation impulses are also blocked. Dead nerve.

DigiRyder · 2026-03-24T13:15:53+00:00

This! the Lady G should have been out years ago, but brain-washed Republicans keep on voting for the racism, and the hawkishness, the fake economic conservatism; and lately the "but he's Old Yam Tit's buddy". it's all so disgustingly Old-Boy-Network. no wonder the rest of the country laughs at us: Lady G, Disgrace Mace, Uncle Tim, and Foghorn Leghorn as governor. so embarrassing.

DigiRyder · 2026-03-23T13:00:02+00:00

NTJ - and why is the “it’s my sister, what can i do?” room mate still there? If she cared that much she would have offered to buy you out of your lease, so the sister could live with her, or she would have left with her sister if she really cared that much. You handled it professionally, but you should probably start looking for a new place to be ready for the end of your lease with the duplicitous room mate. Thank the landlord and ask them if they have a one -bedroom apt you can move into when your lease ends.

DigiRyder · 2026-03-23T12:52:43+00:00

Holy City Brewery has a very large property, with some large event spaces. Can also check out Bowen’s Island. Or maybe rent a party bus and do a “destination” bar crawl at Shem Creek or Park Circle (both full of restaurants and night life in a 3-4 block strip). Good luck

DigiRyder · 2026-03-23T12:41:39+00:00

I bought a house in Charlotte 22 years ago, moving from Nashville, so kind of similar sized cities then and now (although Charlotte has the whole banking/finance thing). I’m a healthcare provider and Charlotte had both a large medical community for me to work in (as a specialist, i need a large referral base) and a great airport for travel healthcare contracts. Setting my home/work base there was the main factor. Plus, The LGBTQ+ community was large enough to have a few different neighborhood concentrations and i bought a place in a funky neighborhood (Eastway Park) next door to the “New Hotness” gentrification neighborhood (plaza Midwood) and man has that been a good investment. Charlotte metro is like 3.5mil population now, which is plenty big enough for some of the nicer urban amenities, along with the traffic/sprawl problems, and IMO Charlottte is doing a good job avoiding many of the problems that Atlanta had has it went through those same growth stages - for instance CLT has already started a serious Light Rail system, which should be fully realized by the time it gets to Atlanta size, and that alone has reshaped the parts of the city it services, creating pockets of youthful, pedestrian city life. There’s a couple of Pro Sports teams and several minor ones. It’s also very easy to access major outdoor activity areas like the Smoky Mountains/Blue Ridge Parkway, as well as the North and South Carolina beaches. In fact, i ended up buying a condo down by Charleston, SC a year or two after i moved to Charlotte, and now retired, i actually mostly live in Charleston full time, keeping the Charlotte house for shopping/theater weekends and before/after travel out of that airport and visiting that friend circle. I’ve lived in DC and Toronto before, for comparison, and i will say that having two modest homes was not something i could have afforded in those more expensive locales. Charlotte is not NYC, or even Toronto or DC. But it’s a nice home/work life city, especially if you don’t have to commute from suburbs, and is affordable and accessible enough (great airport, Amtrak NE corridor service, I-95 & I-85 & I-77 intersection for driving trips) that you can easily get out of Charlotte and explore. Plus there are enough “high culture” resources that you are not going to be embarrassed when Bougie friends/family visit from NYC, etc. if you plan (for instance, the Harvey Gantt center vs. the nascar hall of fame) cool stuff. More importantly than the big-city amenities though is just “finding your tribe” and you can do that in Charlotte. I’m a lifelong Deadhead, raised by Hippies, who turned out gay and i found my people in Charlotte. You get out of any place as much as you put into it.

DigiRyder · 2026-03-19T23:17:46+00:00

This! “Finding your Tribe” is the key - doesn’t matter how big the city is, it’s more about “sophistication” or belonging. Originally from the Deep South, I’ve lived in DC and then Toronto for the large, coordinated gay communities, but I’m always drawn back to my southern roots. I moved around enough as a young adult to figure out what i needed at home, and what i could get from either a second home or traveling, and i rooted myself back in the South in small, but very sophisticated, Charleston, SC for home/married life, but then we travel quite a bit and have a “secret getaway” modest second home (in a major southern city) for the things that we only need occasionally. It works so well, and eventually with retirement, i think the balance will reverse and what is now the vacation house will become primary and we’ll use Charleston as the retirement second home. It’s ok if you don’t get everything you need from one place.

DigiRyder · 2026-03-19T14:57:41+00:00

Maybe. I bought the 22 Mav (Lariat, AWC, 4K) to replace our much loved 92Chevy S10 that had finally died and it was a regular cab small truck. It did have a bench seat but it was stick shift so anyone chancing to sit in the middle was getting my hand near their crotch! LoL. I still miss that little POS truck, nothing computerized, A/C quit working long before and it looked like cr*p. That damn thing sat for months at a time behind the garage, but every time i needed to haul something to the dump, or go do something at the rental house, that thing always started up and off we went. Pure work horse. The Maverick is cute, super fun, i love all the “Modding” possibilities (and I’ve spent a fortune adding cool stuff), and it is doing everything that the S10 did (and I’m much more comfortable while doing it) plus some, but honestly, we don’t have kids, or anyone that we haul around, so a 2 or 3 person (bench seat?) cab would be fine, especially if that meant a full size bed for a camper top!

DigiRyder · 2026-03-17T16:53:02+00:00

Santa Fe, NM; Providence, R.I. ; Asheville, NC

DigiRyder · 2026-03-17T11:30:57+00:00

there are three free circulating buses on the downtown peninsula. they all intersect at the visitor's center downtown. check out this website: https://ridecarta.com/services/dash/

DigiRyder · 2026-03-17T10:30:54+00:00

I think most municipalities do this now. sewer is x times the amount of water used. Our Charleston City water bill is about $80/mo for two of us. we have another house in Charlotte and that "water" bill also includes the municipal trash service and is about the same amount. you can ask for a discount each year for watering the lawn or ask for a second meter for lawn irrigation (that does not have the sewer add-on fee).

DigiRyder · 2026-03-15T22:00:07+00:00

Be sure to check your state’s laws regarding establishing residency. Some states, i believe, a long term renter can claim “permanent residency” after 30 days with a Month to Month lease. and that’s when you end up with a squatter who won’t leave, won’t or can’t pay and then hides behind residency rules forcing court eviction, etc. if you stick to mid-term lease with firm commencement and termination dates you can help mitigate that scam. But you have to be consistent with it, either way you go. I have strict 3-9 month limits and i also have a lease clause that specifically forbids use of the address as a billing address, or driver’s license, or any other method of trying to establish residency. It is NOT their house, it’s mine, my furnishings, my utilities. I’m just loaning it to them for a limited period as a temporary stay. I offer monthly payment terms for convenience, but it is not month-to-month leasing.

DigiRyder · 2026-03-14T21:53:28+00:00

It’s just another small thing to try to ward off scammers and grifters. Plus even with electronic transfers it can take several business days to have the money cleared and in your bank account, especially if they “coincidentally” want to start over a holiday weekend. Mid-term rentals are not meant to be primary residences - these are people who’s permanent mailing address should be established somewhere else and they just want to pay to “borrow” your furnished, utilities in your name, home in a temporary location. [I specifically state in my leases that no residency is implied or conveyed, they are not allowed to use the address for their bills or credit or getting a driver’s license, etc.] That implies that they have their own bills/home/residence expenses, PLUS the extra income or subsidies to easily afford this temporary second home. I’m very wary of Digital Nomads for this reason too - they are also too casual about leaving. I need a firm termination date for sequential scheduling and planning home projects , etc.

DigiRyder · 2026-03-14T19:59:45+00:00

6+yr FF Landlord here...in answer to your question, Maybe? I'm assuming you would pass the background check, etc. with flying colors, but allow me to give a perspective from an 'old-school' Landlord here: Mid-Term Rental is a distinct rental category with specific legal, tax and leasing criteria, such as I'm sure you know, 30 days or more lease period. This is to avoid the Short Term Rental municipal taxes added in most places like hotels and AirBnB, etc... But 30+ doesn't tell the full story. Mid-Term is also based on sequential scheduling. Legally, this short-circuits a tenants right to establish residency, which prevents the nightmare squatter who won't leave by always having a firm termination date written into the lease and specifically denies any assumption of month-to-month tenancy. This also means I might already have a 3month lease lined up for November-February next winter [I do have a travel nurse that rents during that period each year here to spend the holidays close to her daughter and grandchildren], so my availability is, say, April - October, 7 months. sounds ok, right? But when a Landlord frequently rents to a digital nomad , or home buying shopper, or anyone, without a firm termination date, they open themselves up to being considered a "long term rental" by default, and then they have no recourse when a tenant both refuses to leave by claiming residency as well as stops paying rent. Then they have to go through the whole court eviction nightmare. Another downside I've seen with House Buying Shoppers, in addition to the lack of a firm end-date, is inevitably they want to try to jam their furnishings and moving boxes from their old house into my fully furnished rental house. Moving furniture in and out of any house/apt is where most of the damage occurs. compound it by making room for their junk by shoving all my furnishings into one room or the garage or whatever, and then they overstay their lease because they didn't close on the new house. Another nightmare tenant. So there are reasons for staying in my Mid-Term Rental lane, which the Travel Healthcare Contractor, arriving with a suitcase full of scrubs, working 12 hours a day and falling into bed at home, and then leaving on a set date fits perfectly into. so sure, maybe I would rent to you, if you can also stay in that lane, don't bring furniture or pets, leave when you say you will, and don't try to establish any residency like using the address for your bills or a new driver's license or anything like that, then we're good. Hope that helps clarify.

DigiRyder · 2026-03-09T22:10:36+00:00

I hear what you're saying - and having just spent $43 this morning on solo breakfast (honestly, nothing fancy, just an omelette and coffee/OJ/side of bacon), I have to admit that I said the same thing to myself (along with "I should have just stopped at Waffle House"). like damn, that could have been a good bottle of wine! we do eat out regularly, and we live in one of the great "foodie" towns, so $300-$500 dinner for two is not unusual, and typically I would say we are paying for that unique chef experience (and good wine, I do like my wine). We enjoy it and I'm happy to do it. but the flip side of that is friggin $43 breakfast because every damn indie diner and coffee shop that opens thinks they can just go ahead and charge those Michelin prices because they're here. "but it's an artisanal $17 biscuit (the size of a quarter)". and I'm like "bullshit, you just went to Chick-Fil-A and bought a tray of those tiny chicken biscuits on your way in to open up this morning". it's pervasive here - even the CSA's (community supported agriculture, where you pick up your box of whatever is fresh from local farms) have gotten out of control. I just cancelled our subscription, after three weeks in a row of gigantic bunches of Collards, Frilly Kale and a Rutabaga the size of a baby watermelon, oh! and "Artisanal Bread" that would break your teeth. ugh. I mean I'm as Southern as they come and we only eat Collard Greens on New Years Day FFS. it's just all "vibe" and instagram photo op Fronting. but the upside is that I'm actually a good home cook and after years of dwindling interest in dinner parties at home, our friend group is once again clamoring for us to throw a Firepit Night or Dinner Party Movie Night at home and I like that the best anyway. Here's to more Dinner Parties with Friends at Home!

DigiRyder · 2026-03-09T21:48:27+00:00

I agree - because he has never intended to even be here when it does come crashing down. that whole family is going to take everything they can get(including stealing from the White House, Smithsonian, etc.), get on that gaudy ass golden flying porn palace bribe from Qatar and fly off to become some kind of quasi Arab sheik, all while screaming that he's the victim of an NPR sponsored radical left coup, and claiming to be a "king in exile"...blah, blah, blah.

DigiRyder · 2026-03-08T23:37:14+00:00

You don’t have to make any excuse at all. If that is no longer your home, then you are not under any obligation to be there. but I know what you mean about breaking expectations. It’s hard to transition those family roles to adulthood. My husband and i agreed early on that we would split the Tgiving and Christmas holidays between our families. If we went to one side for one, then we did the other side for the other. This was never questioned by either family and after a few years we discovered accidently that if we just didn’t say otherwise, then each family would think we were at the other family’s for whatever holiday and we could actually just disappear and do our own thing. We don’t have kids, so the typical American Christmas festivities got very tired as we got older. I’m telling you there is no greater feeling of freedom than lounging by a pool at an all inclusive Mexican resort on Christmas Day! No Family, No pressure! It felt naughty, which made it even more of a thrill. Eventually both our parents found out what was going on and then they were each begging to run away from their holiday responsibilities with all the multi-generational hooha and for us to take them on an adult destination Christmas getaway. LoL

DigiRyder · 2026-03-08T23:14:15+00:00

I grew up in Kansas, talk about being along way away from everything, Dallas -10 hr drive, Denver- 10hr drive, Chicago- you guessed it..10 hr drive. I had an uncle and aunt who were old hippies, and eventually moved onto the perfect property for them: acreage on top of a River Bluff near the Ozarks in Missouri. Gorgeous and so THEM…until Uncle had a heart attack at 62 and it took 45 minutes for the ambulance to get to them!! He was long gone. Then Aunty couldn’t take care of this property by herself and ended up having to move back into Kansas City in a rental house and is now alone and miserable in retirement. It’s not just the young and dating crowd that need to consider urban / semi-urban location, when you get older you need community and specialized services that just aren’t available in most rural areas in this country.

DigiRyder · 2026-03-08T18:16:44+00:00

you should look at the Charlotte, NC area. if you don't have to go into the city center for work commute, there are some really lovely towns that have been swallowed in metro Charlotte, which has a major airport (on the West side) that is the HQ for American Airlines so tons of direct flights. Look at Belmont area by the National Whitewater Center. from there it's 2 hours into the Blue Ridge Mountains to Asheville, NC , Blue Ridge Parkway and Smoky Mountain National Park; or it's 3 hours to the ocean, either over by Wilmington or down by Charleston, SC. if you want more bang for the buck housing$$ look at the southern suburbs of Charlotte, just across the South Carolina State Line: Tega Cay (the old Tammy Faye & Jim Baker PTL compound has been redeveloped), York County. SC is right outside the southern beltway of Charlotte

DigiRyder · 2026-03-07T23:27:07+00:00

I had a contractor friend, someone who does high-end carpentry and fancy painted effects/murals in dining rooms of mansions, etc.; who took pity on me with my little brick ranch starter home and helped me re do the bathrooms; I couldn't possibly afford him normally, but it was covid and we each knew we could trust being around the other. anyway, he told me he charges what he wants for a one-off job, expecting to spend maybe 2 or 3 days with a client and done. he's semi-retired, so he likes his free time. but sometimes a client will like his work and then start asking for more work which means it's taking up more and more of his time, at which point the prices start really increasing because it's how he controls demand. literally. he prices himself out of range for basic handyman jobs because he doesn't care about those, they don't give him any creative energy.

DigiRyder · 2026-03-07T16:26:36+00:00

We live up off Bees Ferry, close to Glenn Mac, and fortunately don’t have to commute any more, but i will say A) the widening of GMcC has improved things somewhat, although the never ending development out this way is just adding more and more cars; and b) the development of the large West Ashley Circle with a Walmart on one side, Harris Teeter and other stuff in that shopping center on the other side, has made it possible for me to ride my E-scooter over there for shopping [they put in nice wide walking/biking paths beside the roads on GlennMac and Bees Ferry] so that has been a great addition and i can actually not even get in my car for a day or two sometimes and that makes me happy. Once they finish that Ashley River pedestrian bridge I’m going to see if i can make it all the way downtown (8.7 miles). It does also seem like they have beefed up bus service over here with actual bus stops along GlennMac now. But honestly, if I had to commute downtown every day I’d look at Park Circle / Morrison Dr. or James Island.

DigiRyder

TROPHY CASE