Is Aiea a decent area or no?

[Plummeting]

We're transferring to Oahu and I need to find a house. I wouldn't even be asking, but I found a house I WANT, but I'm not going to get there for 3 more weeks and I'm afraid it will be rented out by that time. It's a fabulous house for a fabulous price. Of course, that makes me think it's not such a fabulous area. DH will be working at Pearl Harbor-Hickam, so I'm interested not only in what's in Aiea and whether it's a good enough area, but how traffic is from there to the base during normal rush hours. Someone please help me! lol I've never gotten a house sight unseen before, but I just want this house, provided the area meets my criteria.

[beautifulnm]

Aiea isn't bad. I live nearby, over by Salt Lake. Traffic is slow everywhere on Oahu basically but Aiea is so close it doesn't matter. If you're going to Hawaii Kai, to Ewa, to Makakilo then yeah, traffic is an issue but seriously at most it would take like 10 minutes from JBPHH to Aiea. BTW, were you on the March '10 boards? If you don't end up getting the house and you aren't diametrically opposed to military housing Halsey Terrace is nice (The 3brs off of Salt Lake, past the NEX, super close to JBPHH).. 

[Plummeting]

I was in the March '10 DDC! I've never lived in base housing before. Generally speaking, I am pretty diametrically opposed to it, but I did hear Halsey Terrace wasn't behind gates. If that's true, I'd consider it. I don't like being locked up from the rest of the world.

[beautifulnm]

I thought your name looked super familiar! Yea, no locked gates. I can PM you some pictures if you want. Are you guys already here or still en route? 

[Plummeting]

My kids and I are arriving tomorrow. DH will be there on the 20th. I saw pictures online at the website and at some blog I found. So you lived there at some point? Did you like it?

[beautifulnm]

I live next door (we only have one son, typically a very long wait if you only have one child).. I have friends that live in HT though. I gotta say though for the price you can't beat it.. We used to live in Kaneohe, and I love Kaneohe/Kailua, but the price is just ridiculous for what it is. We were spending $2600 on rent for our 3br, plus $200 for electric, plus $80 for water.. Here we pay 2040. That's it. Beyond that it's a central location, it's not a bad drive into town if it's not 4pm, and pretty much whatever you need is within reach. 

[Plummeting]

Ugh. I just looked at a house in Kaneohe today and I was depressed when I left. I knew they'd be smaller. I knew they'd be crowded together. I just didn't think it would get to me the way it does. I drove through 2 different neighborhoods up there, and neither felt like a place I could easily call home. I've never lived in housing before, but even if we did decide to I don't really know how it would work out. The waiting list will be at least several months, and I'm NOT living in a month to month place with all my stuff in storage until then. My daughter is on the spectrum and I just can't do that with her. She needs to be settled and have her stuff and have routine. On the other hand, I don't think I could get all our stuff, then pay to move it all ourselves a few months from now. That's crazy and that's too much for her also. I feel pretty stuck and unsure of what to do right now. :(

[beautifulnm]

I'm sorry. It's far from an easy situation. I know housing sucks but call them, the wait might not be as bad as you expect, and there's AMR over the hill past Target that you probably qualify too.. I'm almost certain the wait isn't months for Navy housing, they hold back a certain percentage of houses to get families settled faster and settled before their TLA runs out.

[Plummeting]

I have my appt on Monday, so we'll see what they say. They told us a couple weeks ago that the wait was averaging 3 to 6 months right now - too long to live in temporary lodging and too short to get a lease and unpack all our stuff. I know that's not really the case for everyone, but we sold our house 2.5 months ago and have already had our stuff packed up for all that time. My daughter has to have some normality and routine. I can't do this moving all the time. It's not a normal situation, kwim? We have to settle down or we're all going to go crazy, because she can't deal with this. This stinks, because we just got here and now I feel like our whole experience is going to be ruined by this housing issue.

[beautifulnm]

That's such a bummer. I really thought they maintained open houses from our appointment, we waited less than a month for our house but they said that was the earliest we could have a house because the quicker turn over ones were for people just arriving.. :\ I wish I could help. I'll keep my eyes peeled and ask around if anyone is renting anything decent soon.. I hope this doesn't ruin your whole experience :( Hawaii has some flaws and housing in general is certainly one but there's a lot of good things to experience here too.. If there's anything I can do let me know. I'm sorry you're going through this.

[Plummeting]

That's so nice of you! I'm sure we'll love it here. I was just having a negative moment there - sorry about that. It's just that my older daughter is really difficult, my husband has been away for weeks, and any semblance of normality (which ASD kids need) has been shattered for 2.5 months now, so dd is acting WILD lately, and it's causing a serious amount of stress for all of us. In the last 24 hours we've had to leave two stores with her having screaming fits like a toddler (she's 7) and we have to get settled somewhere or I don't know how we're going to manage. I mean, we will - you know how it is with the military; you always DO manage somehow, no matter how hard it is. I just don't want to carry on this way for months and months. It's not good for any of us. Fortunately, dd isn't into name-calling (thank goodness for the small things) but she has called me 'meanie' so much lately that the baby/toddler (what do we call them right now?) is now doing it. Big sigh, although is kind of cute to hear the baby say, "Meamie!" while she scrunches up her face at me. lol

I was thinking today that maybe we could get a house over in Ewa by Iroquois Point, since they have the gray boats from there over to the base. That's just a 20 minute shuttle ride, so it wouldn't be bad at all if we were close to there. If that area is open to us, I can probably find a house over there. I don't work, so I don't need to worry about myself getting stuck in rush hour traffic - I just don't want DH to spend his whole life either at work or driving. The Aiea house was gone within 48 hours of my first post, and I haven't seen another one over there that looks like it would work. I really never wanted to live on base, but I'm thinking at this point that if they had a house in Halsey coming up soon, I would take it!!! I guess I'll keep my fingers crossed. :)

[Plummeting]

I don't know if you'll check this thread again or not, but I just wanted to say that it's worked out. :) I was getting depressed looking for a house here that wasn't so far from Pearl, so I decided to just accept housing if they offered me anything decent, and I totally lucked out. They offered me Pearl Peninsula, which I am definitely declining. The place they showed me STANK - they really ought to be ashamed of themselves asking military families (or anyone else!) to live in a stinky house. But they also offered me a house where I actually wanted one, so that's fabulous! It won't be ready for 5 weeks, so I have to settle into a long, rough 5 weeks at this hotel, but I'm satisfied. I can't believe we're actually going to live in housing, but from what I can tell from talking to you and others, most people who've always insisted they would never do it wind up doing it at some point in Hawaii. And if we hate it, it's a lot easier to move out of housing later than it is to get back in it, so no biggie. Thanks for your help!