Really? What made it not a place you'd like to live? I just have visions of living in a cabin with no windows and living off the land lol...but then again I think I was born in the wrong century anyway. I bet the weather is nice there! I think we're gonna end up in Florida some day.
Gas - almost $5 per gallon. Eggs- $6 per dozen, Chips - $5 a bag, Cereal $6 box, Milk? Don't ask.... all dairy and eggs come from the mainland now, unless you have your own animals.
Dental work that falls out of your tooth (on both my son and myself with work by two different dentists) - hundreds of dollars.
Housing - $350,000- 25 million, Schools - rated the lowest in the nation (we homeschooled), Healthcare- well when they operated on a friend of ours, they left a sponge in his head. And one doctor used a part of a tool in the operating room to pin a leg bone because he did not have the right pin and the patient was open. He got sued.
Urologist - none on the island. 'If your bladder infection gets real bad, better head for Honolulu' (yep, that is a quote from a doctor). Orthopedic surgeon - one for 4 hospitals.
Health department - tries not to scare the tourists by warning them about parasites (on humans) or polluted water (leptosprosis).
Scorpions - in my daughter's bedroom at 2 a.m.
Gecko's (like the one on the GEICO commercial) - never had one day without one in the house. Usually had many living in the rafters. One landed on my son's hand at the breakfast table and then splashed into his cereal. One landed on my daughters leg as she sat on the toilet. Mostly I just had to mop up their poo from the window sills, kitchen counters, where ever they were hanging out.
Centipede/Millipede - look that up and try not to scream. One landed on the couch next to me one evening. So glad it did not land on my head. We had to cut them in half with scissors. they were too rubbery to smash.
Giant flying cockroaches that are drawn to light and one landed on my throat, one the size of a quarter, so I just picked him off and tossed him. They were an every evening problem - drawn to the houselights. They hit the windows every evening and then all the geckos were crunching them. Kids watched it like it was t.v.
T.V. - no t.v. on the mountain.
Shopping - Wal Mart, K- Mart. Saved us a ton of money - no temptation.
Rats - in the walls and attics. Every house, every year, everywhere - no way around it. Our fancy neighborhood was full of rat traps. I see them outside the hotels in Honolulu.
Mice - floating in the swimming pools in the morning and running under your car tires so that you hear 'crunch, crunch, crunch' as you drive over them. But you don't even care.
Fires on the mountainside/pastureland and Hawaiian men on bulldozers plowing dirt paths to stop the tradewinds from pushing the flames into our town. A seasonal event.
7.0 earthquake that caused us to run from the house as glass shattered around us and water began to pour from our second story down through the floor to the first story. Oct. 2006.
250 earthquake aftershocks PER DAY. PER DAY for weeks following that big quake.
Roads -- dangerous.
Mail delivery -- to your p.o. box in town only.
Trash - haul it yourself to the dump and sort it into the right bins.
Newspaper - go to the local store.
Propane - bring your tanks into town and fill em.
Furnace - no got em. When it is 40 degrees on the mountain it is 40 degrees in your house.
A/C- at the hotels. When it is 93 degrees on the island it is 93 degrees in your house.
Mildew - part of life, your books, your photos, your clothes, your shoes. Tropical = mildew. Favorite possessions there are made of wood/shells/lava/rock/palm fronds. They last.
Air - VOG Volcanic Sulfer dioxide and ash - sometimes severe and kids can't go out for recess- stay inside with A/C on if you have A/C.
Tap Water - too much lead to drink - we had to go to a water station with 3 gallon bottles.
Crackheads/Methanphetamine - #1 in the nation.
Tourists = victims, overcharged for everything. But with a warm smile of course.
