I lived on Elm Arcade. A meth head tried to abduct my toddler through a crack in our front door, the second night we lived in the duplex. I opened the door a crack and she was standing there. Asked a bunch of questions about my kid, then tried to get my kid to come to her. We had to purchase a shot gun and an aluminum baseball bat. After this incident, a couple days later, my wife was home with my daughter and had to go get the gun to get the meth head and her boyfriend away from our duplex. They wouldn’t quit trying to talk to her, and she just wanted to leave the house safely. They refused to back up off our porch, so she let them know. They finally moved out within that month. The crackheads behind us were in the process of being evicted (found this out from the owner, who stopped by one afternoon to ask about who had been in the house and stolen tools and broken the fence). They came at night and started big ass fires to sit by. They had the FD by there more than once to put the fire out. The old lady who lived 2 doors down from us was a heroin addict who moved dudes in and out of her place. We work in healthcare and she knew that. One of her boy toys OD on heroin. We gave CPR and narcan. Two weeks later, same dude does the same thing. We administer CPR and narcan. Drains weren’t draining, contacted the landlord. Landlord’s plumber says there were drugs and needles clogging the line that runs from all the duplexes. We assume they tried to dispose of the drugs after the second OD, thinking we would call the cops. But they refused 911, so we never called. Had some dude with a black covering over his head run up to me while I was smoking a cigarette on my porch and tell me he was running from the cops, could he have a cigarette. I told him no and to get the fuck off my porch. He took off running. Still don’t know if he was actually running from the cops. All of this happened from mid-December 2022 through mid-May 2022, when we finally had enough and moved to Ozark.
Stray cats and dogs. SNAKES. The neighborhood roads don’t seem to be taken care of as well as others in the city. Takes forever to get to a highway, or to anywhere, really, due to location. The neighbors we had that weren’t crackheads mostly stayed to themselves. They would wave rarely, but otherwise left everyone else alone. A neighbor at the end of the road stopped us while we were on a family walk one afternoon to talk, but she was really nice. You just gotta be choosy and be prepared to protect yourself, even on the Southside of Springfield, or anywhere. Make sure you keep your doors and windows locked when you’re not at home, and even when you are. We installed an extra lock on our door when we lived on Elm Arcade, after the whole attempting to steal my kid thing happened. Be aware of your surroundings. Make sure your porch light is on, always, and is a bright light. Get an anti theft system in your car and do routine checks. I know that sounds paranoid, but you’ll be grateful when you notice that someone backed into your car sometime overnight and left marks if you’re walking around your car often. Be prepared to get in your car when you walk out of your door - keys in hand, no distractions. It depends a lot on the location in West Central. Some streets are alright, but they get a little of the spillover when shit goes real bad on another close street. Some streets avoid like the plague. Some streets only be on during the day. My advice is to drive the area during the day, during the evening, and after midnight. Do it on weekdays and weekends. Observe. See if people are at home in bed, expecting to work tomorrow, or if there are a lot of lights on with people up at 3AM with nothing to do. See if vehicles are left running at 3AM, waiting for someone to go to work. See if people are out walking their pets, or are out with their kids. With the exception of Elm Arcade (due to circumstances) everywhere I have ever lived, I have scoped the area out for a few weeks before deciding if I want to live there. So far, I’ve been able to keep myself and my family safe doing that. But really, use common sense! :) and good luck finding something beautiful!! I hope it works out for you.