When my husband and I decided to move to Texas, we had no idea we were about to embark on a wild adventure. We found what we thought was a cozy apartment, but it turned out we had unknowingly landed smack dab in the middle of gang territory. How did we find out? A bit of Googling and some unsettling FBI and police reports.
For the first three days, I couldn’t sleep. Then, just a few days into our new life, my baby brother flew in to visit. That same night, someone started banging on our neighbor’s door, which was just a foot from ours. Peeking through the peephole, I saw a guy in a cowboy hat, gold teeth, a button-down shirt, blue jeans, and pointy boots. He was waving a gun and yelling for our neighbor to come out. Terrifying doesn’t even cover it.
We lived in a one-bedroom apartment, so all three of us crammed into the walk-in closet along with our dog which you will see in the featured image, listening to the chaos outside. Things quieted down, and in my naivety, I peeked through the peephole again. What I saw next was straight out of a comedy movie. Two cops had shown up, and just as I looked, a tiny female cop, maybe five feet tall, whipped out her taser. She told the guy to get down, but instead, he started running. Like a scene from an action movie, this 100-pound woman leapt through the air and tackled him to the ground. She pinned him down, disarmed him, and cuffed him in record time, while her tall, muscular partner stood there looking completely bewildered. I couldn’t stop laughing for days.
That was my first impression of Texas. We had many more encounters with crime, but that one was the funniest. In a strange way, I almost miss it. Our apartment was practically empty, with just an air mattress, a card table, and a dog bed. So, the nightly antics in our neighborhood became our cheap entertainment.
But not all the experiences were funny. One night, around 11 PM, we heard screaming. I looked out the window and saw a group of women, maybe 11 to 15 of them, yelling at a girl who turned out to be just 14 years old. It was some kind of gang dispute, and these women ended up attacking her. It was horrifying. She survived, thankfully, but the memory still haunts me. And the bloodstains on the sidewalk stayed there for three days until the rain washed them away.
Our “luxury” apartment complex was a far cry from what was advertised. We battled German roaches like it was WWE, and no matter how many pest treatments we got, they kept coming back because our neighbor’s apartment wasn’t treated. Despite all this, we learned to make do with what we had.
Outside our chaotic neighborhood, I met some genuinely wonderful people. The southern hospitality is real. The folks I met at work were some of the kindest and funniest people I’ve ever known. Moving from Ohio to Texas was a big change, but I’m glad we had this experience. It taught me a lot about resilience and making the best out of a tough situation.