Hi,

I am looking for advice regarding areas of Kitchener.

My husband and I, along with our 2 kids (10 &8) will be relocating at the end of this month. My husband has a job in Kitchener, we both drive however we had planned that he would cycle to work for the first few months, at least while the weather is ok until we can sort a car. we have only been in Kitchener once, for his job interview and we never had much time to look around.

We would prefer a townhouse or house but would consider an apartment. Here are a few of the townhouses available for rent at the minute:

Breckenridge Drive
Eagan Drive
Centreville Street
Lawrence Avenue
Millwood Crescent
Ottawa Street South
Kingswood Drive

Are any of these areas really bad? (drugs, gangs, vandalism etc?)

We have had a look at schools, our kids attend catholic school here in scotland however we will be considering any good school in Kitchener within our catchment area.
Any advice offered would be much appreciated.
Thanks
Karen

You might find this police mapper of use

Geocortex Viewer For Silverlight

I've asked someone who lives in Kitchener to comment. She didn't know some of the addresses and has emailed her husband who might know them. I don't know why we don't yet have comments on the rest of them but gift horse, mouth.

Hi Karen, I live in Kitchener and I love it here. There's not much in vandalism anywhere. Young adults here don't tend to hang around in gangs as such, and even if they did, they're generally polite, not like the gangs in Glasgow! My husband is a local, and the advice I've been given is, avoid Breckenridge and Centreville (can have junkies and the likes loitering). Ottawa St is OK, my mum-in-law lives in that area and she likes it. Lawrence, Eagan and Kingswood are ok too. Millwood is ok too, but a wee distance - kinda like the suburbs.
What area of kitchener will your husband be working in? And is he fit enough to cycle in the heat. (Today's temperature is forecast to be in the 30's but with humidity that changes to 36°C. I wouldn't want to be cycling in that. Tomorrow's forecast is 41°C with humidity). The buses here are not as frequent as maybe you are used to in Scotland, I personally have still not been on 1 and I've been here over a year , my stepsons don't drive so they use them all the time.
http://www.kijiji.ca/b-apartments-co...oo/c37l1700212

I'm including a link for kijiji, another option in your search for a rental


hope this helps

Thanks to siouxie, dbd33 and mrskickasso for the helpful replies.

Mrskickasso, we had not taken the heat into consideration however he will be working 12hr shifts so starting early morning/late evening so hopefully this will help with that aspect plus i am always telling him he needs more exercise!

We are going to struggle without a car since we are so used to driving everywhere and never rely on public transport, but with only 1 wage coming in until i get some work sorted then we will have to try our best to cope for the first few weeks till we get something sorted out.

Again thanks for the info-much appreciated

We have been using Kijiji, padmapper,etc. I dont think it helps that we are searching around the same time that College/uni starts, everything we enquire about has gone already or they dont want to wait for us to arrive for viewing. We have had a few places email us some extra pics and application forms so hopefully we can get something in place for our arrival.

"Mrskickasso, we had not taken the heat into consideration however he will be working 12hr shifts so starting early morning/late evening so hopefully this will help with that aspect plus i am always telling him he needs more exercise."

https://weather.gc.ca/forecast/hourl..._metric_e.html

Check this out. Its our forecast for the next 24 hrs, the heat doesn't stop just because the sun goes down

i know im being very naive, we just arrived back home from Canada last week and it was really hot while we were over, anyway showed this to my husband- he now insists on a car! Maybe need to have a rethink. On the plus side a car would allow us to have a wider housing search area.

Total opposite of Scotland at the minute.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/w...tion/gcueqxyj4

Ugh I'm about an hour away from you in Niagara and its just as bad here, at least this is apparently the last heat wave of the season.

OP from what I've heard from friends in Kitchener is that most of the city is great, the city center you run into your usual jakeys and sketchy folk but no worse than any other city. I'm awaiting a more detailed response but she is at work until 3am.

My colleague ultimately declined to comment on streets but did suggest contacting the local cops: https://www.wrps.on.ca/contact-us

On that site I found maps showing the locations of various crimes:

Geocortex Viewer For Silverlight

the application is awful but, if you have the tolerance, you can see where crimes are committed. I'd think looking for drugs and disturbance might be a good indicator of the rougher areas.

Chuckle!

GMTA

http://britishexpats.com/forum/canad.../#post12023977

Oh there are plenty of cyclists and runners around even in this heat. My husband was out the other night.

Ah! So the idea is good if only we can find someone who can work the thing.

good to know, thanks