House hunting, ground floor or high up??

[ama537621]

ok me being from a town where 4 stories is a high rise and 4 cars behind a red light is a traffic jamb I have a question.

 

Would you trust getting a ground floor apartment in a small 4 story housing block? There are about 20 houses in the gated area. It has a small garden with a swing outside the livingroom. It would be perfect to rock the baby to sleep in if she is fussy. On the down side I am afraid of traffic noise keeping us awake at night.

 

Or I can go with an apartment about 10-20 stories up 2-3 bedroom down side, riding the elevator up, lugging groceries, but probably much quieter.

 

Yuan is staying with her parents until the baby is born and we get the passport and the COBA filed in Guangzhou.

She say's it is my choice "I said ohhh S**T in my head when she said that".

 

Both are within walking distance from a shopping mall, 3 bank's and a Tesco.

 

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[Randy W]

Sounds like you don't like elevators!

[Fu Lai]

our new house is on the 20th floor

 

I like views

[warpedbored]

I would be more worried about being burgled on the ground floor.

[tsap seui]

First floor apartment? Well sir, lets start with the 3 universal rules of plumbing:

1. Shit flows downhill

2. Cold is on the right, hot is on the left

3. Payday is on Friday

When buying a home in a concrete canyon, or even in a nice 4 level community always pay special attention to rule #1. Any dead bodies, human or pig, or any other reason a main sewer line would clog up out in the street in front of your building building just know this.... when your happy neighbors above you flush away their troubles, your bathroom walls will bear witness to what they had to eat 24 hours previously, as your bottom floor 3 inch toilet drain with the half a gallon of water in it's trap cannot hold back 50 gallons of sewage sliding down a 4 inch or 6 inch sewer stack from your friendly neighbors overhead. It will literally explode out of your toilet and cover the walls of your bathroom in a textured paint color you most likely will not like. Good Lord help you if your sitting on your toilet enjoying a fine morning constitutional when the explosion occurs, what you are trying to eject from your body can get "injected" backwards along with your neighbors awful offal. And,, I am not joking when I call it an explosion. I worked as a plumber and that word only half explains what a bathroom looks like when a clog in the street gets back up in the line far enough that the next toilet flushing above you is the straw that broke the camels back. Those are the jobs where you tell Harriet Homeowner, "Ma'am, you clean up the work area, I'll fix the problem."

 

Another reason for not choosing the convenience of that first floor home. Security. See those bars on the windows? NIght time bandits can unscrew or saw through those delightful bars, that make you feel you are like John Dillinger inside, looking out, much easier standing on terra firma than hanging on the side of the building 4 stories up. No bars on the windows in a first floor home in a city in China? Might as well leave the front door unlocked. But, its a gated community....so is ours. Guards fall asleep, guards get bought off. Stuff happens.

My Chinese wife prefers 3rd or 4th floors. She lived long enough in China to experience their elevator's rituals and habits. Then again, everyone has their own experiences and preferences I couldn't get my wife to even look at a building over 7 floors when she bought our home. If you ever went to visit Mr. Yang and his wife in Guangzhou while there for your interview, his home on floor 20 something says it all. Nothing like looking out your window and seeing nothing but other buildings looking right back at you....and having them literally block out the sunlight during parts of the day.

 

Good luck with your search. This report was only from one Chinese woman, and an out to pasture plumber...lol

 

tsap seui

[amberjack1234]

tsap seui has given you some good good advice. He is an old plumber, carpenter and electrician. I do those things too but on a much more limited basis. My profession was a firefighter for 30 years. Something that the average folks just don't think about is FIRE. Yep those concrete caves are pretty fire safe when they are empty but when you add a house full of things that burn then they become a fire trap. Remember those bars on the windows to keep them bad guys out well they will keep you in too. China has got a great deal of area to cover when it comes to fire safety and I do mean a long way.

 

I will not get into this fire thing any further except to say that I am with Ronnie's wife on staying around the lower floor areas. If you are planning on having babies then that means that you are young so stairs are not much of a problem for you but I am 65 so I would not be able to trot down 40-50 flights of stairs full of toxic smoke and fumes and perhaps flames licking at my heels with ease by myself much less with a grand baby in my arms.

 

For every floor that firefighters have to contend with the less efficient their efforts are until it is almost a very limited effort of just just a display of effort for the public to let them think that you are doing something. That is the truth of the matter.

 

This is the safety take on this thing of choosing an apartment in China.

 

Larry

[dan1984]

this isn't the most scientific of opinions, and i'm not sure if this would apply throughout all of china, BUT, in the past my apartments were on the upper floors of buildings. Currently, i'm on the 2nd floor, and during the summer i'm in a constant battle with mosquitos! in the past the mosquitos didn't venture up to the higher floor apartments. the next time we end up looking for a place, i am definitely going to make sure it is on one of the higher floors........i hate mosquitos!!

[ama537621]

I never would of thought about the plumbing issue, or the mosquitos, looks like I will try for a mid level apartment when I go looking with HR today.

Thank's for the advice.

[tsap seui]

I never would of thought about the plumbing issue, or the mosquitos, looks like I will try for a mid level apartment when I go looking with HR today.

Thank's for the advice.

Buddy, if I hadn't have seen that plumbing scenario both in America and in an unfortunate ground level unit is China then I wouldn't have thought of it either. But it is definitely real. I've seen it in nice homes in DC neighborhoods were a clog got into the main sewer out in the street and the lowest homes on the street got tons of horrible stuff you'd never dream of blown all over their bathrooms. Unless you happened to see it or knew of someone who lived through that hell, you'd only hear about it from a former "turd wrestler". Dan and Larry brought out some more challenges and downright life threatening advice on how high up or low to go.

 

Its only me and I freely admit I'm not into concrete canyons, but that 4 story gated community sounds darn nice.

 

Whatever you pick....good luck.

 

tsap seui

[Fu Lai]

Get above the 8th floor (where elevators are required in China) or maybe you like a billion stairs...

 

I never would of thought about the plumbing issue, or the mosquitos, looks like I will try for a mid level apartment when I go looking with HR today.

Thank's for the advice.

 

my wife says the first few floors have as features, salesmen knocking on your doors all the time, street noise!!, thieves, people off the street wandering in taking anything in sight and using the halls and stairs as toilets / sex places / etc., first floor has the good old security probs too plus peepers and flooding, heat rises so the bottom is also the coldest, gated community or not

[2mike&jin]

I second and third all the previous advice - sage at worst ...life saving at best. My 2 Mao - Security, bugs, and crap downhill/pipe would be my strongest reasons to be above the 8th-10th floor - given that there were sufficient elevators. If the elevators were crap (#, speed, size) I would look for a different building.

 

One un-scientific fact I have learned from living in many high-rises both in Washington DC and Hawaii - as well as China - is that sound tends NOT to dissipate at higher levels. Sounds strange, but low level background noise is lower but bar noise, horns, security alarms, broken bottles, arguments, emergency vehicle sirens -- all seem to me to be just as loud on the 45th floor as they are on the 8th or 10th floor. We have a 15th floor in Xiamen - and the little "English/German" sports bar about 100 ft away, and of course 15 floors down, drives me nuts on Saturday night. Seems like they get louder and drunker as the night goes on - what a surprise! Just my opinion - but I would never buy on the ground floor or anywhere near it.

 

I love the advice your wife gave you...you make the decision --- a recipe for disaster! My wife did the same thing with our new home construction on the slopes of Diamond Head - specifically ...build me a strong house for the kids and don't screw it up!

Edited May 18, 2013 by 2mike&jin (see edit history)

[ama537621]

Well, 2 dumps one apartment I would not even walk into and 1 decent place later I have reached a decision.

 

As much as I did not want a ground floor unit I ended up picking it. It is in the center of the gated area so almost no street noise. Ends up the owner is a chinese woman with a husband from Singapore. They have refused to rent the unit out to any Chinese people, they only want western types so "they do not trash the place" owners husbands exact words.

 

I posted pictures on my album. I hope I do not live to regret this.

[Randy W]

Well, 2 dumps one apartment I would not even walk into and 1 decent place later I have reached a decision.

 

As much as I did not want a ground floor unit I ended up picking it. It is in the center of the gated area so almost no street noise. Ends up the owner is a chinese woman with a husband from Singapore. They have refused to rent the unit out to any Chinese people, they only want western types so "they do not trash the place" owners husbands exact words.

 

I posted pictures on my album. I hope I do not live to regret this.

 

Looks great! I'll bet you find it pretty quiet overnight.

[tsap seui]

I agree with Randy, that place looks great!!! I don't think you will regret your decision at all. A really nice looking place.

 

And, that wall paper in the dining room....is SMOKIN' buddy!!!! Just don't hypnotize yourself at meals, I looked at it a lil' too long and started to zone out, thought I was hearin' Timothy Leary tawkin' in my head as I wuz being transported back to 1973. A lil' Pink Floyd cranked up to 8 or 9 would go well with that wall paper.

 

Seriously, you've got the quietness and some darn nice views as well as a nice comfy feel to the apartment. In my hick in the sticks, stone cash redneck hillbilly view of the world and beyond I gotta say in my best Larry the Cable Guy voice, ya gotter done buddy, and in style too, I really like the place.

 

Ya mind if I brang my wife and son, 15 of our most favorite relatives, and come fer ah visit? I promise we won't stay more than 2 weeks. We'll brang some grits and pinto beans. I might do me some fishin' in that pond out back.

 

tsap seui

 

And yes by Gawd, in the first deck photo....that is your main sewer stack runnin' down the wall behind the folded up sofa. Try as I might, I can't get my dayz spent as a turd chasing wrestler to leave me alone. I jes notice stuff like that no matter how hard I try not to. But, trust you, me, the plumber's crack sense of intelligence in me assures me that since you ain't living with 10,000 people overhead of ya....you are gonna be jes fine n' dandy my man, fine and dandy.

[Mick]

Very nice, indeed. Like tsap, I found the dining room wall paper to be a bit psychedelic. I didn't hear Pink Floyd though; instead, I heard In a Gadda Da Vida. What city is this in by the way?