Renting a house in Colonia San Antonio, San Miguel
Trip Start
Jan 01, 2006
1
16
17
Trip End
Feb 28, 2006
San Miguel de Allende,
Mexico
Thursday, February 23, 2006
I will go back and fill in some entries from the past 1 3/4 month but this one will be about some of the experiences of renting a home here in San Miguel. We are in Colonia San Antonio, which is a ten minute walk, up hill to the Centro, the historic downtown. San Antonio is what is euphemistically referred to as multi cultural, which means it is not a foreigner's enclave. It is a rapidly gentrifying area but still is a mix of small commercial operations (metal working, auto repair, wood working), lots of little storefronts selling convenience goods, new construction homes, renovated homes, non renovated homes, and vacant lots
Our fountain.
. It is somewhat gritty and edgy compared with the enclaves where most of the rental homes are but we like it, especially having real shops close by to buy good quality deli items, organic veggies, imported goods, great bread, etc. When you are here for a while and doing cooking, being close to those kind of shops is more useful than being close to a boutique, although we have those too.Our house has a maid who comes three days a week for four or so hours and a gardener who comes a couple hours twice a week. We have a beautiful little garden that the house looks out at. Our roses, which climb a trellis on one wall, are coming out and the orange tree is in bloom as is the pomegranate tree. We have other flowering bushes and trees, ferns, cactuses, a little fountain, humming birds, little birds, doves, bees, etc. We have a narrow terrace with a table and chairs on the ground level that is perfect for a late cup of coffee, the mid day meal or happy hour as it is off the kitchen and main room. The roof top terrace is for sunning and is great but hard to balance those drinks and snacks to get up to. From the roof we can see up the hill to the spires and towers of the centro churches and the other way out to the edge of town. Late in the afternoon, flocks of hundreds of birds fly right over head as they move from one feeding area to another. During the day, you can sit and watch all the roof top activity in the neighborhood, the domestic help hanging out laundry or watering plants, and the construction work going on all around us
Our front door
. Also you have the roof dogs (the security dogs) and the roosters (for cock fighting)to 'serenade' you. The houses are built cheek to jowl with no space between them. One house might just use the wall of the other already built as one of its walls. There is a very loose sense of building codes so almost anything goes and you are lucky if someone doesn't compromise your foundation as they build next to you. With no insulation and adjoining walls you can hear lots so I have been relying on my ear plugs. Of course, all that is less of an issue in the fancy neighborhoods.
To date San Miguel has enjoyed a reputation as a safe and secure area, attracting lots of tourists and ex pats and snow birds, especially women, but this winter there has been a series of attacks by a rapist who has targeted foreign women living alone and there has been a lot of press about this. You can see why the traditional design had razor wire and broken glass around the walls and roofs.
Across the street from us is a new construction duplex that is two townhouses owned by Americans; one is rented most of the year and the other from time to time.
Our garden
Next to that is a nice new construction house owned by Americans who seem to be here most of the year. Our house is owned by Americans who use it several times a year but rent it out the rest, but who built it as a retirement home. All the other houses appear to be owned by Mexican families and are more modest. There are still several vacant lots. Because it is a dead end, there is less through traffic which is nice.One of the great challenges of house renting is figuring out how everything works, which varies from neighborhood to neighborhood. In ours, the city garbage pickup is sometime Monday, Wed. and Friday afternoon. There is no place to put garbage out so you have to be here when they come. Houses with full time maids or grandmas living there don't have a problem, but our maid comes the three days the garbage doesn't so it took us about a week to figure out how to deal with this. Local kids come around on garbage days and ring your bell or pound on the door and yell "Hay brasura?" which is "is there any garbage." They then collect your garbage from you and trundle it away, usually in a wheel barrow, for the equivalent of one to two dollars per visit. That beats waiting around all afternoon. Why they aren't in school is a mystery but some of the schools are on double shifts due to overcrowding and school is only compulsory and free through sixth grade.
Our neighbors across the street.
With a growing second home population, both N. Americans & Canadians, as well as rich Mexicans from Mexico City, San Miguel is one of the richest communities in Mexico and affords visitors a wide array of luxury goods and services. While this creates a certain level of jobs in service and construction work, the local employment base doesn't support a living wage for many of the locals and this area is one of the major sources of illegal workers going to the US. Many families have all the men from teens to old men across the border, sometimes sending money home, sometimes not. The gringo community here does support a lot of charitable organizations to feed the elderly poor, handicapped kids, poor women in the campo, etc. but there is that contrast between the haves and the many have nots. However, the locals are unfailingly polite and courteous and all you have to do is give someone a smile and a greeting to get a friendly greeting back. And an appreciative smile to a baby or small child also prompts a return smile from the adult. The average age here is very young and you see teen girls with babes in arms that are probably their own. A grandma could well be in her forties.
So that is a little taste of daily life here in San Miguel.
