Advice

Don't you ever let anyone tell you that a prospective home is in a great location because it is adjacent -- or even near -- either a church or a school, and if it is blessed with a fine view of the dull gray parking lot of one of each, hightail it frantically in the other direction unless you are deaf and plan to never leave your yard. I see very little advantage (having no children and being a Jack Mormon) to the traffic snarls and perpetual noise these institutions produce. And as for crime and quality of life, neither structure has ever proven a deterrent for the shenanigans that occasionally occur in this house, whether perpetrated by its landlady or her tenants. Someday I want to live in the house -- going for a song! -- that's across the street from a prison. I suspect that's the only way I'll ever know peace.