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HomehousingPedophile free

Pedophile free

Let’s play a game shall we. We’ll call it “Let’s see how many pedophiles live by me”. Sounds like a blast doesn’t it!?

Since I am an investigator by trade, I like to gather information on people and my surroundings. Sometimes this means going to a courthouse and pulling public records on people. Other times it means I just Google a person’s name and see what comes up.

As Girl Ninja and I continue to shape our idea of the type of place we want to buy, one thing is becoming evident; We want to live stupidly close to a public school, city park, or other public building.

Our current rental is half a block from an elementary school and we love it. While some might be annoyed by the sounds of little kids running around during the day, or moderate road traffic during pickup/drop-off hours, I view this as a small sacrifice for a much more significant benefit.

No sex offenders can live close to us. 

I mean, we need to really stop and consider where our future home is physically located. If we aren’t near a park or school, there is nothing keeping an offender from moving in right next door. Now I don’t know about you, but I imagine this would significantly diminish a property’s value.

How could it not????? 

I don’t care how cute a house is, if I pull up the offender list and see a bunch of dots around said cute house, I’m not writing an offer. Period. End of story. Now I get that some offenders shouldn’t probably be on the list for life (like 18 year  olds that were in a consensual relationship with a 16-year-old) and maybe some were actually rehabilitated during their jail time, but still, the offender-free zone is going on my list of nonnegotiables.

I’ll take an outdated kitchen or a foundation issue over a pedophile any day of the week. The first two issues can be fixed with time and money, there is nothing I can do about the person that moves in next door.

So, you ready to play the creepiest game of your life? Go to Family Watchdog and punch in your address. By default it will show a mapped view. Instead click on the “List” tab. This is where it will show you the distance between you and the closest offender. Mine is 2.5 miles away. How about you? Anyone else consider the sex-offender issue when you were house/apartment hunting? If not, you’re welcome 😉

 

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45 COMMENTS

  1. Wow! I never knew about the Family Watchdog. In my country there is no such service and I wish there were. I think you are absolutely right about not wanting to live near an offender. Out of curiosity I looked up my old address in the US and wow! Absolutely scary!

  2. Unfortunately it’s not the people ON the list that you need to worry about. You have to worry about the guy NOT on the list. 2 of my 3 offenders are not on any type of list (I don’t know the 3rds name and all 3 happened when I was a child and my parents didn’t press charges because the 2 were family. Nice, huh??). Anyways, I just had to point out that most sexual offenders molest/rape 8-10 different girls before they are caught.
    So, again, I’m not worried as much with the people on the lists…..

    • Ugh, that is so sad. And I hate hearing stories of parents “protecting” their extended family members instead of protecting their freaking children.

      But why wouldn’t you be concerned by the people on the list? There is nothing you can do about people not on the list unfortunately. I have to work the best I can with the information I’m given. You can’t discount this information just because there are people who haven’t been caught.

    • Wow, Valerie, I’m so sorry to hear about that. Thank you for sharing here, and you are totally right, that knowing what’s on the list isn’t as important as protecting your children from anyone that might harm them, especially family, as most molestations happen with someone VERY close to the family, if not IN the family. My heart hurts for you 🙁

      • I just have to point out a statistic here.
        93% of juvenile sexual assault victims know their attacker.

        34.2% of attackers were family members.
        58.7% were acquaintances.
        Only 7% of the perpetrators were strangers to the victim.

        Thanks for the sympathy 🙂 After years and years and years of therapy and breakdowns, I’m good to go now. It’s just amazing that as a victim, I’m still the one that paid for the actions, financially and mentally, while he’s out living his perfect life with no repercussions at all. =

        • You don’t think neighbor would qualify as an acquaintance? That seems to me the most appropriate category for someone you see regularly but aren’t super close to.

  3. One of my wife’s cousin is on the list because of a mistake he made when he was 19. It is a shame and it will follow him for the rest of this life, but it is what it is.

    I also would echo what Valerie says, I’m more concerned about the people not on the list….

    • There is nothing I can do about people not on the list. Impossible to know everyone’s skeletons. I can only work with the information provided.

  4. I don’t worry about those on the list because I believe in forgiveness and redemption. Just like i would hate for the world to forever judge me by my own worse moment, i would hate to do it that to anyone else. I feel like if they served their time then they should be treated like everyone else.

    • Hey I do to. Especially when some people on the list did something stupid like my 19year old ad 16 year old example. But that doesn’t mean that I won’t take caution. It’s kinda like a smoker. I don’t think I’m a better human being than them. But that doesn’t mean I have to enjoy being around someone who smokes.

  5. Great thanks. There are some offenders who live nearby. They’re under the “other” category so not rape or child offense charges, but then, what? What did they do? The 16/18 year old thing, which is no big deal? Something dumb that shouldn’t qualify? Or something real deal? I can’t believe how many dots there are on the map overall.

  6. Like it or not, these people have to live somewhere. And undoubtedly there are all degrees of offense and rehabilitation. There is one such within my apartment complex. I don’t know him and know no reason to believe he has caused trouble for anyone in the neighborhood.

    • Yeah I’m not saying we should excommunicate them and send them to an island somewhere (although for some perhaps we should), but that doesn’t mean I wont consider taking advantage of living in places where I know they can’t legally live.

  7. I live in a suburb of Houston that’s a fairly nice, middle income area (even some super high income areas very close), and it’s practically impossible to not have an offender at least in the neighborhood. There is even an elementary school in our neighborhood right down the street (less than half a mile) and several listed offenders closeby…so I’m assuming whatever the rule about them being close to schools doesnt apply where I’m at. I’ve never really looked into it though, because the offenders are literally everywhere.

  8. There aren’t any listed for my actual town but my block is on the border of another town so the closet to me is half a mile in that town.

  9. The nearest to me is .93 miles, but just out of curiosity I looked up the local elementary school’s address. There are 5 within half a mile of it with the closest being .23 miles. When you state that they can’t live close to a public school, city park, or other public building how far is defined as being close? Is 4 football fields too close for comfort? Also, just remember that those are the ones who have been caught somehow and are now required to register, who knows how many haven’t been caught that could be living by you.

    • Depends on your cities rules, usually it seems like 1,000 feet is the minimum, sometimes increasing to 2,000 feet away from schools parks. Some cities also include libraries and community pools, etc.

  10. I have 9 offenders within a mile from my residence. But that seems to be the case for big city living here in Chicago.
    And I live in one of the safest, low crime neighborhoods in the city!

  11. I have always watched this list, as I have a 3 year old and a 21 year old. I live right by a school as well…an elementary school is about 1/4 of a mile away from my home. I also get offener list updates, whenever an offender moves anywhere in my area. I always know who is on that list, I memorize their faces. Gotta be careful with my babies, no matter how big they are!

  12. Well, I have seen this before, but haven’t checked it out since my son was born. Thanks for the great sense of security. I think I need to move!

  13. The site I used before I moved into my house listed the age of the offenders, which I think is useful. (The closest offender was a 76 year old man, a few blocks away.) I don’t have children, but that kind of thing can affect property values.

  14. While I agree with the idea of knowing your surroundings and having this kind of information, I have never let something like that dictate where I live. If I feel comfortable somewhere I don’t feel I should be frightened by someone on a registry.

    I also checked the site before closing on my first home and there are definitely some red dots near me, however no one in my neighborhood is scared or deterred from letting their kids outside to play or walk around. That list is just that, a list.

  15. When we were searching for our first house, we thought we found our dream house. We then searched online and it turned out that the next door neighbor was a child molester. We did NOT buy that house because of that reason.

      • I know! I was so happy that I checked. I noticed that the house was priced much lower than others, and I’m guessing that just had to be the reason. Who would want to live there?!

  16. 0.86 miles. Rape. Awesome.

    I’m glad I’m moving in 3 months and I will be sure to pay attention to it then!

  17. We did look and unfortunately there is a guy .41 miles away. Oddly enough we are .5 miles from the kids’ elementary school and .3 from their junior high..so I thought it was odd that he could live so close too. Good post and good warning…just SO sad that this is something we have to think about. In other news, I am not going to let fear run my life (I have some friends choosing to homeschool for this reason), but I will be aware and educate my children about making safe choices as well.

    • Exactly. Best thing you can do is familiarize yourselves with the persons picture and what crime they committed and how long ago it happened.

  18. LOL they are everywhere in my city. Hopefully this new expensive home we purchase will at least keep my immediate neighbors decent…

    • I wouldn’t count on it. Being poor or rich isn’t always correlated to a persons propensity to crime.

  19. Four blocks away – one person – misconduct with a 4 year old – then nobody for another 10 miles.
    Interesting note: when I interned for the local police department (criminal justice degree), my halloween ride-a-long consisted of us driving past those registered offenders houses to make sure they were not handing out candy or had lights on that would bring children to their door. Way to ruin my favorite holiday!

  20. Eh…just a few people within a 10 mile radius of my house. One is a 23 year old for sex with a minor so for all I know he was 18 and his GF was 17 when it happened.

    I have a very mixed opinion of these lists. I wouldn’t let it determine where I lived unless the house I was looking at was in the center of a neighborhood that had rapists everywhere or something.

  21. I don’t know about other states, but the Residential Offer to Purchase documents for the state of Wisconsin include a notice about the state sex offender registry and a link to the website.

    When I was buying my house, I looked up sex offender information for each of the houses I was considering before I made an offer. I also looked at online property tax records for the neighborhoods to see how long the neighbors had lived there and if they were delinquent on paying taxes.

  22. I just have to point out a statistic here.
    93% of juvenile sexual assault victims know their attacker.

    34.2% of attackers were family members.
    58.7% were acquaintances.
    Only 7% of the perpetrators were strangers to the victim.

    April is almost over with, but this month is sexual abuse awareness month. Please make yourself aware and knowledgeable about how to talk to your kids about this danger. It’s VERY relevant since 1 in 3 girls is sexually abused at some point and 1 in 6 boys are.

  23. Hmmm this map does not make sense. The list view says that the nearest offender is 1.11 miles away but when I actually plug in the address it is 3.6 miles. List view is a bit skewed, I think it pulls from the zip code not from the actual address. I noticed because I live in the subdivision that has 155 homes with minimum of 1.25 acres of land per home (it was a requirement when the subdivision was built). It takes a whole mile just to get out of my neighborhood from my cul-de-sac. Thankfully no offenders in my subdivision.

  24. My work blocked me from going to that site. It was listed as unsafe:sexual content. LOL!

    I guess I will have to check this out from home.

  25. The closest one to my home 0.19 miles away, and both he and the other dozen or so less than a mile away have some pretty recent, heinous crimes on their lists. :/

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