I am usually a pretty positive person.  I won’t and don’t use this blog as a way to grumble publicly about things in Mexico that aggravate me.  But I’ve had a recurring thought that just wouldn’t go away so I thought I’d blog about it.

Here goes:

Some people seem to think that the rules here are the same as the rules where they came from.  Not true.  An acquaintance of ours had an out of scale building being constructed across the street from her, on a hill.  During construction, the front part of the property and part of the street caved in, apparently due to bad construction practices.  It has sat there with decaying caution tape around it for several months now.  Who knows what will happen next?

On a hill near Centro there is a condo under construction that was originally approved for six stories, and after it had most of that construction completed the approval was changed to 11 stories.  This will essentially block the views of a number of neighbors and is probably about 6 stories taller than most of its neighbors.  A picture is below.  (Imagine another 5 stories.)

But both those examples are in neighborhoods with vacant lots begging to be developed.  Even in built up areas there can be challenges.  Imagine how Wayne’s friend felt when all of a sudden a night time taco stand opens next door to her home!

Here’s another choice bit…A park in Centro of one block square.  In the center is a library.  There is a morning cleaning person every day, and a couple of times a month gardeners descend on it and trim and chop it into shape.  There used to be two large barrel garbage cans in this park.  I used them every day to dispose of our dog-do bags as I walked by with the dogs.  Several months ago, the barrels were gone.  The area where the cans used to be is now heaped with garbage bags and trash and the whole park feels sort of slummy despite the best efforts of the people that work there.   One friend said they thought the reason the cans were removed was because households were putting their trash in the park cans in between the Monday-Wednesday-Friday pick ups.  Who knows?

And another:  The city has a very active mosquito patrol.  They go house to house checking water in fountains, distributing bags of powder to put in fountains, and we have felt a real commitment to keeping mosquito populations under control, and hence control dengue.  But down the street from us is an abandoned house with water seeping (but faster than that, really) out the door and down the steps.  The sidewalk is a black sludgy mess.  And if you look in the window-hole (there is no glass remaining) you see a gloppy mess of inch deep water and sludge.  Do you suppose they just walk by that one when they are on our street checking houses?

None of these issues have my blood pressure rising…I am pretty mellow and am able to take note all this in the abstract, and I feel lucky for that.  But thinking about this kind of thing and how you might react yourself would be a good exercise for someone planning a move to Mexico.