Tag Archives: Housing in Dickinson

Why I Keep Writing About Dickinson, North Dakota, Part III

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In the states affected by hurricanes, there are laws against price gouging by businesses on supplies when a hurricane is approaching.  Businesses can not double the price of plywood and gasoline, among other things.  There are criminal charges, fines, and publicity in every newspaper about who took advantage of people.

North Dakota has just gone through its third oil boom.  The first one was in the 1950s, the second one was in the late 1970s, and the most recent one started in about 2007.  Note that each of these oil booms lasted about 7 years, and that each of these oil booms were about 30 years apart.  From everything that happened, I wish that the North Dakota State Legislature would enact “The North Dakota Boom Rush Law”.

“The State of North Dakota hereby enacts The North Dakota Boom Rush Law,  whereby the Governor acting alone, or by vote of 2/3 of the State Legislature, a condition of a Boom or Rush is officially recognized as occurring somewhere in the state, and the following protections are taken:

No business, or individual, may increase the price of necessities to more than double what the price was during the year prior to the declaration of the Boom or Rush condition.  Necessities include food, fuel, housing, hotel, transportation, vehicle repair, vehicle towing and recovery.  To do so is a crime, punishable by up to one year in jail, and $5,000 fine.

Further, it shall be unlawful for any business, individual, or government entity to interfere, impede, or delay the construction of housing, for the purpose of creating or causing a scarcity of housing, or for creating or causing high housing prices.  To do so is a crime, punishable by up to one year in jail, and $5,000 fine.

Additionally, the State of North Dakota shall be responsible for actively contacting all national news services with accurate truthful information regarding the Boom or Rush condition, and taking an active role in not allowing misrepresentations in work, working conditions, and rates of pay.

The purpose of this legislation it to prevent the hardship and suffering of both the residents in the affected areas, and the migrating workers.”

I thought that just about covers it.  Then I realized that neither the Governor nor the Legislators would allow this legislation.  The truth is, they are probably greedy also, or they are accountable to a bunch of greedy business people back home.  The real estate agents, property managers, and property investors would scream, “Are you crazy!”

Where did I ever get these ideas about treating people fairly, treating people like you would want to be treated, not taking advantage of people, not harming people, helping people?  There has got to be something wrong with me.

 

Why I Keep Writing About Dickinson, North Dakota, Part II

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I believe in the necessity of Child Labor Laws, Minimum Wage Laws, Workers Compensation Laws, Occupational Safety and Health Laws.  They came about because workers were mistreated.

Some of you business people would probably like to express your opinion that there should be free markets, let the market place decide, we don’t need any regulations on business.  I would like to have you spend several weeks scrubbing out the inside of rail road tanker cars.  You don’t need to know what was in them.  You don’t need to see any MSDS sheets.  You don’t need a respirator.  You don’t need positive ventilation.  You just need to shut up, and do your job scrubbing out these tanker cars.

I believe that workers arriving in Western North Dakota should have had some protection.  Prior to 2007 in Dickinson, a one bedroom apartment rented for approximately $400 per month.  By 2011, a one bedroom apartment rented for approximately $1,500 per month.  Prior to 2007 in Dickinson, a three bedroom house rented for approximately $700 per month.  By 2011, a three bedroom house rented for approximately $3,000 per month.  The price of rent quadrupled from 2007 to 2011.

Real estate agents, property managers, and property investors liked to say, “We have no choice, our prices have gone up and up.”  No, your prices went up by %50 at the most.  If a property investor purchased a three bedroom home in Dickinson in 2001 for $40,000, their mortgage payment, property tax, and insurance was probably less than $350 per month.  The mortgage payment is fixed, the insurance may have increased slightly, and the property tax may have gone up as much as %100 by 2011.  So by 2011, the monthly payments might now be $525 per month, it went up %50.  Why were you trying to charge $3,000 per month for rent?  It is because you are greedy, you were trying to take advantage of people, and you thought that you could get away with it.

Like I said before, if investors could have figured out a way to buy up all of the food before anyone else could get any, they would sell it back to you at quadruple the price.  Not being able to buy up all the food, or have children work at factory labor, the real estate agents, property managers, and property investors in Dickinson had to stick to real estate.  So all they could do was just make sure that there was a scarcity of housing available, which they did.

German Catholics In North Dakota Part III

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In the South, during the 1700s and 1800s, there was slavery.  Wealthy people on farms and plantations owned black people, and forced them to work for free.

In order to be wealthy enough to own slaves, you were not a stupid person, you were likely educated.  I have wondered what kind of thought process occurred in an educated person’s mind, in order to reconcile, the fact that you owned other people.  Three general possibilities:  You believed that blacks were so inferior, that they did not have the same rights as whites;  You believed that according to the Bible, slavery had existed, and it was allowable;  You didn’t let the thought of moral right and wrong guide what you did.

I can see atheists deciding that they would not worry about moral right and wrong, and participate in slavery because it would not be in conflict with their religious beliefs, they have none.  But slavery was not engaged in by atheists alone.  The South was predominantly Christian Protestant.  I see that the root of the slavery problem was not that people in the South did not worry about moral right and wrong, it was that their sense and understanding of moral right and wrong was warped.

The Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, De-Segregation, Integration of Public Schools, the Civil Rights Movement, all happened in order to bring equal and fair treatment to people in the South.  Me, I have to admit, that one of the underlying causes of the resistance to change was that the Christian Protestant beliefs in the South did not squash the prejudice and hate in people’s minds, like it should have.  In other words, people in the South were predominantly Christian Protestant, but they were filled with hate, and they should not have been if they were in fact followers and believers in Christianity.

Now, I want to point out a similar problem that the German Catholics have had.  Over in Germany in the 1930s, the people were predominantly Catholic.  In Germany, there became an out of control hatred of the Jews.  The Jews were forced by law, to wear the Star of David on their clothes.  They were mistreated, ridiculed, and abused in public.  The Jews were forced to relocate to crowded ghettos, their homes, property, and land were taken.  The Jews were later relocated to work camps and concentration camps, and forced to work as slaves.  Many Jews were worked to death, starved to death, or were killed in the gas chambers.  The Catholics in Germany, if they were truly following and believing in Christianity, they would not have allowed this to happen.

At the end of World War II, there were two entities that were authorized to create identification papers and travel documents for refugees in Europe:  the Red Cross, and the Catholic Church.  It is now known historical record and fact, that the Catholic Church officials created many false identification papers for Nazis that were known to be war criminals being sought by allied forces for prosecution for atrocities against the Jews.  The Catholic Church provided false identification, false documents, aid, and assistance to known war criminals, to allow them to escape to other parts of Europe and South America.

It was not that Germany was full of atheists, it was full of Catholics.  How could you be a Catholic, and think that rounding up millions of Jews, taking their property, and killing them, was the Christian thing to do?  The Catholic Church itself even helped the war criminals escape prosecution, and escape from Germany.

What the Christian Protestants did in the South with slavery was wrong.  What the Christian Catholics did in Germany was wrong.

The De-Segregation, forced Integration of Schools, and Civil Rights Movements that occurred in the South in the 1960s and 1970s were recent actions that occurred to battle continued prejudice, discrimination, and hatred in the South, that had not been successfully eliminated by Protestant religions.  The Protestant religions in the South are partly to blame for allowing and enabling many Christians to live with hateful ideas and hateful practices.

Right here in Dickinson, the Catholic Church is greatly to blame for allowing and enabling these Catholics here in Dickinson to mistreat and take advantage of out-of-state workers.  The Catholic Church, which is one of the wealthiest institutions in the World, had the resources, to help the many thousands of people who came to North Dakota and lived in filth and squalor.

Again, go and look at the Real Estate Multiple Listing Guide in Dickinson, and look at all the happy smiling faces of the realtors.  They have no remorse for taking advantage of the out-of-state workers.  People traveling here to Dickinson, with hopes of finding a good job, and providing for their families back home, only to find that one-bedroom apartments were $1,500 per month, homes that had once been $700 per month, were now $4,000 per month.  Many workers slept in their cars at Wal-Mart, many workers slept in their cars at Tiger Truck Stop, many workers slept in tents at Patterson Lake, or in people’s back yards.  Real estate agents and property developers did not want any man-camps, they wanted to keep prices high!, they wanted to get rich!  They, and the Catholic Church did not want any homeless shelter, these homeless people don’t matter.  The Catholics in Dickinson greatly mistreated the out-of-state workers.  It was not that the Catholic Church or the Catholics did not have the resources, means, and ability to help, it was that the Catholics in Dickinson have hatred towards others.

German Catholics In North Dakota, Part I

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I went to Catholic School, first through fourth grade, Sacred Heart School.  My first grade teacher was Sister Louise.  Sister Louise used to beat us severely.  Mostly she would use her bare hands to slap our faces, but she also beat our palms with a paddle-ball paddle, and she also had a long wooden rod for other types of beatings.

I believe that most of the kids’ parents did not believe how bad she beat us.  Justin, Jonathan, and George all talked to me about it later in High School, “Can you believe that shit, that shit was fucked up.”  All I could say was, “Yea, I know.”

There were other stories of physical harm done to kids at Sacred Heart.  I do remember some students who did not return to Sacred Heart after the first day or the first week of school, these were the kids whose parents believed them.

Now days, the police would have been to that school, the first day, and taken teachers away in handcuffs for assault and child abuse.  We, all of us, could easily win a class action lawsuit today against the Catholic Church for the physical abuse that was done to us.  I could write pages and pages of instances of physical abuse at Sacred Heart School, both of me, and of my classmates.

Putting the above aside for a moment, I want to talk about something else in the Catholic Church that I became aware of as a young teenager.  A friend of my father had been a comptroller for a very large Catholic organization for many years, so many years, that he was trusted.  Many Catholic priests had come to this comptroller with the same “problem”.  These priests had accumulated over a million dollars in personal assets, and they did not want anyone to know or for anyone to find out.  One of the ways in which this was happening, was through relatives and parish members bequeathing things to them in their Wills.

My mother was disgusted, that throughout our state, our country, the World, the Catholic Church solicits offerings, alms, donations, from the poorest of the poor, the people that are barely surviving, and yet the Catholic Church is one of the wealthiest institutions on Earth.  The Catholic priests are millionaires, yet there are many poor people in their parish, who have a hard time paying for food, rent, and utilities.

I started off this blog post the way I did, so that I could state that I know there are some things wrong with the Catholic Church, and Catholic culture and values.  Here in Dickinson, North Dakota, the Catholic Church is, and has been the primary cultural and societal influence.  When there was no oil field, when the German and Ukrainian settlers first came to this area, the Catholic Church was very, very important, and it always has been.

The reason why I am writing about all of this now, is that I want to say that going to Mass, going to Confession, saying Hail Marys and Our Fathers, is not really getting it done as far as instilling human decency in these Catholic people here in Dickinson.  I want to point out again, that the people here in Dickinson really treated out of state workers very badly during this last oil boom.  The people who mistreated the out of state workers the most, were the real estate agents, the property managers, and the property investors here in Dickinson.  Not only did the real estate agents, property managers, and property investors make the rent and housing prices quadruple, they helped to make sure that there was a scarcity of housing and no inexpensive housing alternatives, by making sure there were no new trailer parks or man-camps constructed outside of Dickinson.

If you read the Bible, what you are supposed to do if you are a Christian, you will read sayings and teachings of Jesus and the Apostles.  Jesus once said, so as you do to the least of my people, so do you to me.  Therefore, if you are a Christian, you should watch what you do, to everybody!  Jesus didn’t say, so as you do to the people who are from this area ….

There is a big flaw in Catholicism, if you go to Mass every Sunday, and you do not know some simple teachings from the Bible.  “What profiteth a man that he gain the whole World, yet lose his soul?  Or, what shall he give in exchange for his soul?”

You can go and look at the Real Estate Multiple Listing Guide in Dickinson, and you can look at the smiling photographs of the realtors in Dickinson, good good Catholics all!  People who have connections, and can really get things done!  Yet there is no homeless shelter in Dickinson.  Did I mention, that the Catholic Church is one of the wealthiest institutions in the World?

There are probably some Catholics reading this right now, and they are probably screaming,  “We don’t have to help people!  We don’t have to help anybody!”  If you don’t like this post, you are sure to not like the next post, “German Catholics In North Dakota Part II”.

School Assignment, Dickinson, North Dakota

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Hello, and thank you for reading my blog.  The purpose of this blog is to tell people from out-of-state, what Dickinson, North Dakota is like.  Additionally, I hope that people from Dickinson read this blog.  The people here in Dickinson should be ashamed of how badly they treated everyone during the oil boom.  The people here in Dickinson were hostile, unfriendly, uncooperative, and they took advantage of people.

I want people to know the truth about Dickinson.  I don’t want people to get misinformation about Dickinson from the Chamber of Commerce, the City of Dickinson, or Dickinson State University.  Because I have written approximately forty-five blog posts about Dickinson, this site usually comes up on the first page of search engine results for “living in Dickinson”, “working in Dickinson”, “moving to Dickinson”, “relocating to Dickinson”, “women in Dickinson”, “corruption in Dickinson”, “nightlife in Dickinson”, and “the Dickinson mafia”.

Even though this site comes up on the first page of search engine results, there should be more views every day, from school kids doing their homework assignments for instance.  There should be more school kids looking at this site, but that doesn’t surprise me too much, North Dakota ranks first in some categories of illiteracy.

I want to write this blog for the school kids in Dickinson, to give them some useful information for their school assignments and reports on Dickinson, and to give them some useful life information.

The ratio of men to women in Dickinson is probably about 3:1, which is not normal.  Because there are way more men in Dickinson than women, there is a shortage of women for men to date, and marry in Dickinson.  There should be a strip bar, where men can go and talk to women and see them naked, but the City of Dickinson will not allow that.  There should be prostitution in Dickinson to provide women for men to date, but the City of Dickinson will not allow that.  Thank God there aren’t any rapes!  Because there is a shortage of women in Dickinson, most of the women in Dickinson do not try to stay in-shape, dress nicely, look nice, or be pleasant.  Most of the women in Dickinson are overweight and unfriendly.

There is not a lot to do in Dickinson.  It is cold from about the beginning of October through the end of April, that’s seven months.  It would be nice to go out to bars at night to have some drinks, but the City of Dickinson has instructed its police officers to be very aggressive in arresting people for Driving Under the Influence.  In fact, the Dickinson police arrest people and take them to jail, even before giving them a breathalyzer test, if they are under the legal limit at the police station where the breathalyzer test is given, they are still under arrest, are processed into jail, later post bail, and pay $3,000 up-front to an attorney.  Don’t let mom and dad go out to bars in Dickinson, they might get a DUI, lose their job, and then you’ll be out on the street!

Going out to restaurants in Dickinson is not that great either, the service is usually very bad.  The servers in Dickinson restaurants have been led to believe that all of the oilfield workers in Dickinson make over $100,000 per year, that’s what the television news says.  The servers have had the expectation that every oil field worker would spend $100 every meal and leave them a $20 tip.  The servers are angry that they aren’t making $300 per day at Applebees, Perkins, Country Kitchen, and Players Club.

There are not a lot of restaurants in Dickinson.  Prior to 2008, people in Dickinson did not go out to eat because they did not have much money, they were paid very low wages.  The local companies in Dickinson paid very low wages in order to control their workers.  The workers could not get ahead, they lived paycheck-to-paycheck, they could not afford to lose their job, they had no savings, they were completely dependent on their employer, they had to keep their job even if they were mistreated.

Because wages were low in Dickinson prior to 2008, home rents were low.  A one-bedroom apartment was probably $300 per month, a three-bedroom house was probably $700 per month. Due to the oil boom, by 2011, the rent for a one-bedroom apartment went up to $1,500 per month, a three-bedroom house went up to $3,500 per month.  This huge cost increase in housing not only hurt the oil field workers, it hurt the local people too.  This is why some people say that people in Dickinson were very greedy and took advantage of people.

That’s enough for now, your brains are probably jumping like a toad!  Please, please feel free to write comments and ask me questions.  I’ll go ahead with what will probably be a FAQ, Frequently Asked Question:

Question:  You seem to hate Dickinson, why don’t you just leave?

Answer:  I stay here because currently I can make more money here than elsewhere.  I have a home in a different state that I would like to go back to, but unemployment is high in that state.  While I am here, I would like to get the truth out about Dickinson, so that people from out-of-state will know what it is like, and maybe not come at this time.  I hope that I can change some things in Dickinson by exposing them.

 

 

How I Live In Dickinson, North Dakota

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The purpose of this blog is for me to tell people from out-of-state what it is like living in Dickinson, North Dakota.  Also, if people who live in Dickinson, North Dakota, should happen to read this blog, I want them to see what I see, and know what I have experienced.

I want to be able to tell the truth, so I don’t publish my name, and I try to be vague about the details of my life, so that no one can figure out it is me, and make me stop.

In particular, I did not want the owner of the house where I live, to find out that I write this blog.  I have lived in this house for two years now, and the owner of this house and me, we have had a lot of arguments.  The owner of the house where I live is in his fifties, he is from Dickinson, and he graduated from Dickinson State University.  If he became aware that I was writing so many negative things about Dickinson, he would probably say, “You need to get that shit off of there right now!”

I didn’t start out planning to write so many negative things about Dickinson, I just try to write truthfully, and I don’t want to censor myself on this blog. I have to mostly keep my mouth shut when I am out in Dickinson in order to not have problems.

There are some good points and some bad points about the person who owns the house where I live.  I have gotten a lot of information from him about the history of Dickinson, and things that have gone on in Dickinson.  The rent is not too high.  I have been allowed to keep construction equipment on the property without complaint.

I want to tell about some of the bad things, so that people can know what it is like when you have to live with somebody else due to the very high cost of housing in Dickinson.

Though the owner of the house has lived in Dickinson his whole life, he does not have any friends.  This is not uncommon in Dickinson, because the local people are not friendly to each other.  He has never been married, and he has not had a girlfriend for a long time.  This is also not uncommon in Dickinson, because there is a shortage of women.  Not having any friends or a girlfriend, has led to some quirky behavior, annoying behavior, gross behavior, which I am exposed to and have to deal with.

If you have ever seen the television show from the 1970s, “Sanford & Son”,  about an African-American junk dealer in Los Angeles living with his son Lamont, the inside of the house where I live is exactly the same, and I am kind of like Lamont.  The house has junk throughout the house, there has never been a girlfriend or a concerned friend that has helped the owner to see and understand that this had gotten out of hand.  I have had a couple of my friends come by the house, who I knew could take it, and they thought it was kind of funny.  But I know that I can never invite a woman over here, because they would freak out in a number of ways.  They would be scared of the carpet, the furniture, the bathroom, they would probably not want to have anything to do with me either after seeing where I live.

There would be several additional problems with me inviting a woman over to the house where I live.  The owner of the house is always here, he does not have anything to do or anywhere to go, which is a common problem for everybody in Dickinson.  He has not had a girlfriend for a long time, and there is a scarcity of women in Dickinson, so if I brought an attractive woman home, he would be unable to take his attention off her.  As it is, he stays in the living room all the time, even if he should fall asleep at 6 pm, 8 pm, 10 pm, midnight, he just stays in his Lazy Boy chair in the living room, as if he is guarding the living room, as if he is scared that he is going to miss out on something by going to his own bedroom.

When the owner of the house is in the living room, whether I am in the living room, or my bedroom, he talks to himself.  He sometimes mutters,” I did the best I could…bla, bla, bla”, or cries out, “I’m sorry!…bla, bla, bla”  Sometimes when I am in my bedroom, he goes on a long angry rant talking to himself out in the living room, when I am trying to fall asleep, and I feel like yelling, “Shut the fuck up, you fat fuck, shut up!”  I can only imagine what a fiasco it would be me having some woman in my bed, trying to have sex with her, and she would say, “Stop, stop, what the fuck is that?  Is that your room-mate out in the living room talking to himself?  This is too creepy, I’m getting out of here!”  Yup, can’t bring any women over to my house.

Insight into Dickinson, North Dakota, July 2015

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A Brief Partial History of Dickinson, 2009 to 2015:

For those of you who don’t know, Dickinson, Williston, and Minot have just gone through six years of rapid growth, beginning in 2009 when oil drilling began to take off in North Dakota, probably due to new fracturing techniques allowing much more oil to be removed from each well than had been possible before.  The drilling companies like Nabors, Patterson, Cyclone, and HP moved drill rig platforms to North Dakota.  Fracturing companies came to North Dakota, I think Schlumberger was one of them, I think that Haliburton and Baker Hughes are involved in fracturing.  There were wire-line companies, mud-logging companies, work-over rig companies, casing companies, specialty companies that have a role in drilling.  Tanker trucks delivering water for fracturing, tanker trucks removing water after fracturing.  Hot-shot companies delivering equipment and material, roust-about companies handling and installing equipment and material.

So many people were brought to North Dakota, so many people came to North Dakota.  In 2008, the population of Dickinson was about 12,000 people, now it is about 30,000 people.  In 2008, an old one-bedroom apartment cost about $300 per month, by 2010, an old one-bedroom apartment cost about $1,500 per month.  By 2011, the ratio of men to women in Dickinson became about 4 to 1.

I arrived in Dickinson in 2011.  At first, it seemed like an adventure, it was exciting.  I remember going to the Paragon Bowling Alley & Champs Sports Bar in Dickinson in 2011, and there were about 200 people there on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night.  It was very easy to get a job.  The first place I went to, I got hired right then on the spot.  With overtime, I was making about $1,400 per week.  I met people from all over the United States, and there was a kind of camaraderie with everyone that was a new worker in town, it was like we were all immigrants, kind of in the same boat.  I remember going to Patterson Lake in the summer of 2011, with all the out-of-state workers, DSU college students, and a few local people, there were about 200 people there at the beach on Saturday and Sunday.

In 2013 when I came back to Dickinson, things were much different than in 2011.  There was no more talk in Dickinson about “man camps”, they were not going to be built in Dickinson or Stark County, it was no longer even being discussed.  In 2013, there were approximately at least 500 new apartment units being constructed, and probably one hundred new homes being constructed.  Out-of-state workers were no longer being allowed to stay at the campground at Patterson Lake, Wal-Mart, or the Tiger Truck Stop.  The Dickinson police were now very strict on stopping people for DUI, especially out-of-state workers.  On Saturday and Sunday night in 2013, now there were only about 30 people in the Paragon Bowling & Champs Sports Bar, not 200.  On Saturday and Sunday afternoon in 2013, now there were only about 20 people at Patterson Lake, not 200.  It was a little harder to get a job, though I got hired at the first company I went to, right there on the spot.

In about November of 2014, the price per barrel of oil world-wide, went down, and the price continued to decline in December 2014.  The price per barrel stayed low and went down further in January and February of 2015.  The oil companies in North Dakota such as Continental Resources, Whiting, Occidental, and Marathon decided at the board-of-director level, to hold back on new oil well drilling and on oil well production, there was no use selling all that oil for a low price, it would be better to wait for the price to go back up, then start producing again.  In about March of 2015, in North Dakota we started to see a lot of oil field jobs go away.  The operating drill rig count went from 280, down to 80.  For each drill rig that shut down, it was estimated that 100 jobs went away, that equals 20,000 jobs that went away.

Even though the high paying oil field jobs went away in the beginning of 2015, the most uneducated and uniformed people in the United States continued to come to North Dakota, people that don’t even read the newspaper or watch television news.  Now in Dickinson, there is not a shortage of workers, there are more than enough workers.  The hourly wages have gone down, and the amount of overtime available has gone down.  Not only have many oil field jobs gone away, there is now an over-supply of workers here in Dickinson, there is now a lot of competition for jobs, and few job openings.

At this time, the property managers and the real estate agents in Dickinson are trying their best to keep housing prices high, but they are losing this battle day by day.  I believe that by the summer of 2016, the housing and real estate prices will have dropped by about 20%.  This price drop will be partly due to more new housing being completed, existing housing becoming vacant, demand decreasing, and local wages decreasing.

It is possible, that by the summer of 2016, there will be no benefit to living in Dickinson, in comparison to anywhere else in the United States.  It will likely be just as difficult to get a job in Dickinson, as Idaho Falls, Billings, Colorado Springs, Prescott, Spokane, so there will not be any good reason to move here to Dickinson, because it is cold about eight months out of the year.  I am trying to tell you, It Is Over.

Housing in Dickinson, July 2015

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Since 2009, homeowners, apartment owners, and property managers in Dickinson have really taken advantage of everyone.  The property owners increased their prices so much, that it was just barely worth it to come to work in North Dakota.  Yes, you could get a higher hourly wage and work overtime, but a one bedroom shitty old apartment would cost you $1,500 per month.  Now it is time for pay back, what goes around comes around.  Prepare to have your head shoved in shit and held there property owners!  Ha ha ha ha ha!  You caused everyone to have money problems, now you can have money problems!

I have explained in my blog posts after January of 2015, that approximately 20,000 oil field related jobs have gone away in western North Dakota.  The highest paying oil field jobs, those on the drill rigs, have gone away.  I would guess, that about 8,000 workers and about 8,000 of their family members have left the state of North Dakota since January of 2015.  However, there has probably been about 8,000 stupid people who moved to North Dakota since January 2015, those that neither read the newspaper nor watch the news on TV.

There are less oil field workers living in Dickinson now.  The oil field workers that remain in Dickinson are not as high paid as the ones who left, and there is much less overtime being worked now.  The demand for housing is not as great as it had been in 2009, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.  Plus, plus, in the past year there have probably been at least 400 new housing units completed in Dickinson.  Ha ha, ha ha, ha ha.

Housing prices are going to go down, and down, and down for the next two years.  I have heard that real estate agents in Dickinson are telling people,”You had better buy now, prices are going to go back up in December.”  First of all you lying bitch, it’s 0 degrees Fahrenheit in December, cold and grey, nobody wants to be in Dickinson in December.  Don’t try to victimize me with your treachery and lying, anyone buying any housing in Dickinson will see its value drop about 5% by December 2015, and an additional 20% percent by December of 2016 after reality has set in.  I probably didn’t really figure the drop high enough, what do you think is going to happen when throughout every neighborhood in Dickinson, out-of-state workers are going to just pack what they can into their car and leave, starting about, now?  If there is no way to make your house payment, no way to get a good job in Dickinson, (like right now), what else are you going to do but leave?

I think that the oil field work will possibly pick up a bit in about two years, because of the amount of time it will take to come to the end of this slow down, and the lag time to start proceeding again with more oil field operations.  Think of it like a train, it takes a long distance to slow down, and it takes a long distance to speed up, it is not instantaneous.

Though I am not making much money at this time, one of the reasons that I stay here, is that I hope to be opportunistic when the housing prices reach bottom.  I think that it will take at least two years to get to a bottom.  I want to see housing prices go down and down, and then I want to buy something.  There is oil here, and in the future, oil field workers will have to come back here to Dickinson to get more oil out of the ground.  I would like to own something here in Dickinson because I see the likelihood, almost the inevitability, of oil field workers coming back to Dickinson in the future, and if I can buy something for a low price, and hold onto it long enough, I believe that I would eventually have something that was worth much more than what I originally paid for it.  However, if that ever occurs, I can chose to be reasonable in what I would charge for rent or for a selling price, I don’t have to take advantage of people in the way that other property owners have done in Dickinson.

Warning, Do Not Come To Dickinson, North Dakota

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Please do not come to Dickinson, North Dakota, at this time.  Right now, and in the coming months, there will be many people let go from their jobs.  There will be many more people looking for jobs, than job openings.  The people that are already here will be competing against each other and fighting each other for the few job openings that will come up.

According to the “Dickinson Press” newspaper, and some oil field industry publications, there were approximately 280 oil well drill rigs in operation at the peak of the oil boom in North Dakota several years ago.  A little over two months ago, the “Dickinson Press” newspaper had an article about two drilling companies parking approximately eighty drill rigs outside of Dickinson because they were not being operated.  About one month ago, the “Dickinson Press” had an article that said the number of drill rigs operating in North Dakota had fallen to 97.  Now, the number of drill rigs operating in North Dakota is about 80.  The number of drill rigs operating in North Dakota went from 280, to 80 the present time.

According to oil industry publications, one drill rig that is operating, has about 100 direct and indirect jobs created when it is operating:  site clearing operators, dump truck drivers, quarry operators, road construction operators, fence installers, equipment transport drivers, rig erection crew, site trailer haulers, trailer set up workers, electricians, tank battery haulers, water truck drivers, drill rig operators, work-over rig operators, drill rod deliverers, casing deliverers, fuel truck drivers, heavy equipment mechanics, welders, pump jack installers, oil tank installers, containment barrier installers, automation & control installers, etcetera.  Because the number of drill rigs operating went from 280, to 80, 200 drill rigs x 100 jobs per drill rig, equals 20,000 jobs lost. 

Some of the oil field workers who have recently lost their job have already left North Dakota and have gone home or gone elsewhere.  The ones who left right away already knew what was going to happen.  How do you expect to get another job in the oil field when there are 20,000 other people who are also losing their job at this time?

In Dickinson, every hotel, every restaurant, every grocery store, every retail store, every hardware store, every bank, will let a couple of employees go, because business has slowed down, and it will slow down even more.  Car dealers and heavy equipment dealers will let sales people and mechanics go.

Though many out-of-state workers have recently left Dickinson, the RV parks, trailer parks, and apartments will not lower their prices for about a year, and housing prices will remain very high.  The people who lost their job, who currently have housing leases with high rents, will be so desperately in need of money to make their rent payment, they will take any job they can get in Dickinson, and it will be an employer’s market, wages will go down.

Please do not come to Dickinson right now.  There are going to be so many people out of work, so many people looking for work, and no job openings.  Housing prices will continue to be very high.  You will not want to be here.  It is cold here for about seven months each year.  There is not a lot to do for recreation and entertainment.  The people are unfriendly, not hospitable, and not helpful.  There is a shortage of women, and the women here have decided that they are going to be overweight, unattractive, and unfriendly.  The police here are determined to cite and arrest out-of-state workers every chance they get in order to try to encourage them to leave.

Unfriendliness In Dickinson, North Dakota

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Several months ago, I loaned my truck to a neighbor for a couple of days because his truck had broken down.  I hate to let people borrow my truck because they think it is an old truck, and they can abuse it.  Even though their vehicle has broken down, mine is somehow running.  My truck is running because I have replaced the radiator, power steering pump, water pump, timing chain and gear, fuel pump, drive shaft universal joint, front drive universal joints and seals on each side, installed overload rear leaf springs, and bought four new tires.  All this cost me about $4,000 over the years that I have owned this truck, so it is not just my good luck that my old truck is running.

About two months ago, I asked the neighbor who I had loaned my truck to, if I could shoot my 9mm pistol on his vacant thirty acres, if I placed my target against the vacant one hundred acres behind it.  I explained that I had to take and pass a qualifying exam.  My neighbor said no, and that he did not want to allow me to shoot on his other 160 acre piece of property either.  I then had to drive seventy miles one way to get to a piece of public land that I knew that I could shoot on.  There are two shooting ranges that are about thirty miles away, but you have to go to the shooting club once a month meeting, apply for membership, and pay a $40 membership fee, which is what I eventually did.

About one month ago, I thought that I might have to move to an apartment in town.  I have an extra truck and a utility trailer that I don’t think that I could park in town if I were renting an apartment.  I drove to someone’s property that I have met before, his property is about 1/2 mile wide by 1/2 mile long.  He has several vehicles, several trailers, farm equipment, and other things on his property.  I asked him if I could pay him $75 per month to park my extra truck and utility trailer on his property.  He said no.

I then went to one of my neighbors who is about thirty-five years old, who has an older house on about one acre, with about eight cars, and four trailers on his property.  I told him that I might have to move in to town, that I didn’t think that I would have a place to put my extra truck and utility trailer, could I pay him $75 per month to park them on his property?  He said no.

I kind of understand, and I kind of don’t understand.  I own a house on five acres in a different state.  If one of my neighbors asked to park a vehicle and a utility trailer on my property because they had to move to an apartment in town, I would ask them for how long did they need to park it.  I would say that if it was just for a month or two, go park it way down on the north end, just off the dirt road.  I believe that if you do not collect any money from an individual, and that if they step in a hole on your property and break their leg, your homeowner’s insurance will cover their injury.  This type of thing can happen when anyone walks onto your property to go knock on your front door, this risk is always there.  If you receive payment from someone to use your property, you should probably talk to your insurance company about commercial or renter’s insurance or something.  If someone was offering me $75 per month to park a vehicle and a utility trailer on my property for more than a couple of months, I would find out what additional insurance I needed, because $75 per month is $900 per year.

Outside of Dickinson, there is more vacant land than I have seen just about anywhere else.  There is no shortage of vacant land, there is an abundance of vacant land.  There are farms where people once lived, but no longer live there.  I asked neighbors adjacent to the abandoned farms who owned the abandoned farms, I would like to find out about renting it, the neighbors replied,”Oh, that is so and so, they live down the road there, people have asked them before to rent it, they won’t rent it out.”

Up until about 1980, there were very few people who wanted to visit or move to North Dakota.  It is very cold and barren.  There isn’t a lot to do for recreation or entertainment, there hadn’t been very many things to do for employment.  The first oil boom in this area came in about 1980 and then went away.  During the first oil boom, property prices rapidly went up to a high peak, then went back down to a low price after the oil boom.  I don’t know if there is still some anger over this in and around Dickinson, I think that there is.  Some people sold their land at the right time, got rich, then were able to buy back equal or better land after the prices went back down.  Some people didn’t sell their land, remained poor, and later wished they would have sold their land. 

I think that there is a lot of anger, resentment, hatred, jealousy, and greed stirred up in these local people.  They have a hard time dealing with the amount of people that have moved here.  They have resentment and jealousy that some of their neighbors have sold their land and made money, or that some of their neighbors are getting oil revenue money.  They have resentment, jealousy, and anger that these people from out-of-state can come here and get jobs making anywhere from $15 per hour to $30 per hour, when they have lived here their whole lives and never made that kind of money, that aint right, that aint fair.  I think that this hatred shows up in the local people’s refusal to allow out-of-state people to rent or use the huge amount of vacant land outside of Dickinson.

A Business Fails In Dickinson, North Dakota

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In the blog post below I write about a business in Dickinson that I worked for.  The owners were not particularly evil or malevolent, but they were kind of mixed-up in their thinking.  It was frustrating to see them do things that most business owners elsewhere in the United States would not do, avoiding these mistakes by using normal business sense.  I also explain that it was difficult for this business to work in Dickinson, due to Dickinson being so hostile to out-of-state workers.

In 2013, when I returned to Dickinson, after having been gone for a year, I got a job at a construction company, as a foreman.  I was glad that I got the foreman position because I would have a better chance of protecting my safety and well-being, than if I were a crew worker.  The pay was not high, though it was O.K. with me.  On my first day of work, I came to find out that the foreman I was replacing had given his two-weeks notice of quitting, during his first week.  On this first day of work, both of the company owners came to the work sites, they were very hyped-up, and I could see why the foreman that I was replacing, was quitting.

Both of the construction company owners had a degree in engineering, both of them were in their late forties, early fifties.  This was a specialty type of construction company.  The workers and technicians had come from Oregon, Washington, North Dakota, Idaho, Florida, and Missouri.  Two workers had a degree in engineering, a third worker was about two years away from his degree in engineering.  Some of the workers had received technical training in the military regarding this type of work, other workers had gained knowledge and experience regarding this type of work in other states.  The construction company had accumulated these workers over three years of being in business.

In the beginning, when I first met everyone, all the employees seemed to have above average intelligence, everyone was upbeat, and positive, about forty percent of the workers were very sharp and quick-witted.  One of the very first problems that I became aware of at this construction company, was that all of the out-of-state employees were having housing problems.  My housing situation was very, very bad, and I didn’t want anyone to find out where I was living, I was embarrassed about it.  Two of the workers had paid a lot of money for a basement apartment, they had moved everything they owned from Oregon and Washington, to Dickinson, the basement apartment flooded in May and ruined all of their belongings.  They complained about this to the company owners, explaining their expenses in relocating to Dickinson, having to pay extremely high rent just to share a basement apartment, then having all of their belongings destroyed in a flooded basement.  These two employees explained to the company owners that they needed to be paid enough money to afford a decent place to live in Dickinson, or that the company needed to subsidize their housing, otherwise it would not be worth it to them to remain in North Dakota.  When I first came to work at this company, these two workers were intelligent, funny, energetic, and good at their jobs.  Due to their housing problems, they soon became sarcastic, bitter, and complaining, they hurt company morale, especially when they decided to quit the company and leave North Dakota in June, then they really ranted  about how much North Dakota sucks.

Of the remaining workers, one, then another, and then another had housing problems in Dickinson or other problems in Dickinson.  Due to the cost of housing in Dickinson, one of the married out-of-state workers, never brought his wife to live with him in North Dakota during the two years that he was here.  He had a single bedroom in a house that was shared with some of the other workers. He went straight home, never went out to eat, never went out to bars, never went to Patterson Lake.  I felt sorry for him.  He didn’t have much of a life, all he did was work and go home. He didn’t have any friends.  He was invited to go out by two of his out-of-state co-workers who had lived in the rental house with him, but he declined.  Unlike him, these two out-of-state co-workers tried to make the best of living in Dickinson, they went out to restaurants and bars every night in Dickinson.  In early June, these two out-of-state workers both got a DUI in Dickinson.  I liked these two guys, the corporation that we did work for liked these two guys, they were fun, positive, intelligent, and good at their jobs.  After they got their DUIs, they were not happy about being in Dickinson anymore, their attitudes were not good, they didn’t seem to care about their work very much.  The company had to let them go by the end of August, but they had been two of the best employees before they got their DUIs.

Due to the construction company getting into a position where all of their work was coming from one client corporation, and due to pressure from that client, the two owners of the company that I worked for under-bid the remainder of the work for the year.  Some of the work that I did with my two crews, was taking three times as long as what had been budgeted.  Rather than the jobs being straight forward, most of the jobs had several special conditions that had not been accounted for, which would require additional time and work.  I was frustrated with not being able to make money on jobs, but losing money on jobs.  In discussions with the company owners regarding the amount of time each job was taking, and the additional work required due to complicating conditions, the two company owners acknowledged that they had been led to believe that the work they were to provide fixed pricing on was nothing out of the ordinary, but the work that the company was given, was problem work.  The two company owners did not want to protest that the work they were given was problem work with special conditions, not ordinary work, and that additional work requires additional charges.  Instead, they thought that they would be “rewarded” at a later date for their perseverance by the corporation we were working for.

I was frustrated additionally, by a couple of hires that the two owners had made to do someone a favor.  One hire was made to give their niece a job.  A second hire was made to give the daughter of a friend a job.  At this point, two months in, we had lost four key employees, who were intelligent, funny, upbeat, who had knowledge and years of work experience in this specialized area.  They were replaced with two young ladies, who had no construction experience or skills, who were hired as a favor to someone.

To try to make a long story short, one of the young ladies who was hired as a favor to her father, was a problem.  She was not accustomed to doing physical labor, she was not good at performing physical labor, she did not want to perform physical labor, she did not want to follow instructions, instead she would question me when I would ask her to do something.  The other laborers would do their work, and then go and help her do her work, instead of getting a break from their work, the other laborers would complete their work, and go and do her work.  After a couple of weeks on the job, she wore a pair of jeans with the entire crotch missing.  Neither me, nor any crew member said a word.  At the end of the day I went to the company owners to speak about the problems I was having with this young lady, the company owners said that they had already received a complaint from the corporation we were working for, either through a site supervisor or through a member of the public reporting it.  The company owners asked this young lady why she was wearing pants with the entire crotch missing, and why she was questioning me when I asked her to do something.  She just acted innocent, and like she wanted to work just like everybody else.

In late August, I was tired of how things were going at work.  I felt pressured to try to complete jobs more quickly, though there was not much I could do to speed things up, there were no short cuts to be taken, the jobs had been under-bid, it had not been known that each of the jobs we were given would be unusually difficult due to special conditions.  I was additionally frustrated that keeping in mind that we needed to complete jobs more quickly, instead of getting a strong and experienced construction worker, I got a young lady crew worker who did not want to perform physical labor, would question what I asked her to do, and it looked like she tried to set us up for a claim of sexual harassment.  I quit in late August, and went to work for another company that did similar work.

An out-of-state worker from a southern state was made foreman for my two work crews at the company that I left.  He had arrived in Dickinson in July.  He had a wife and a couple of children back home in the state he had come from.  In August he had been able to lease a house about twenty-five miles south of Dickinson, and he brought his wife and children to North Dakota.  He was a little unhappy about the drive to and from work each day, but he could only afford a house that was outside of Dickinson.  I saw him a few times around town, and I saw him a couple of times on the job.  In about October, he and his family went back home to the state he had come from.  I guess that he was frustrated like I was about having to do nothing but problem jobs that had been under-bid.  He had seen enough of Dickinson to come to the conclusion that even though you can get a job here, the way Dickinson is and the cost of housing makes it not worth it to be here.

In 2014, the out-of-state co-worker who always went straight home after work, who never went out to eat or out to bars, whose wife lived in a different state, he finally went home.  The out-of-state construction manager who had brought his wife to North Dakota about six months previously and had leased a house about thirty miles to the east of Dickinson, he quit and went back to the state he had come from.  The local women who worked in the construction company office quit.  Then the young lady that had been hired as a favor to her father, she quit. Then the client corporation no longer wanted or needed this construction company, and there was no reward for the company’s “perseverance” through difficult work that had been underbid.  And the two owners, and their niece, were the last ones, and they went home.

Like Crabs In A Bucket, Dickinson, North Dakota

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When I grew up in the South, I used to catch blue crabs in the Indian River.  While you were crabbing, you dropped the crabs that you caught into a half-filled bucket of water.  If you would look in the bucket after you had caught about five crabs, one of the crabs would very nearly have the tip of one of his claws on the top rim of the bucket.  But he never got out, because the other four crabs had a hold of him and were pulling him back down.  Dickinson is like that.

When I first got to Dickinson in 2011, I went to work for an oil field service company that was short handed.  They hired me, and two other out of state workers.  One of the workers never showed up.  They hired me because I had a camper on the back of my truck, I had a clean driving record, no criminal record, and had construction experience.  In order to encourage me and the other guy to stay, the company management said that they would provide housing for me and the other guy, that is, until the other workers heard that.  The other workers, which were from Dickinson, said, “That aint right, why should the company pay for them to have a place to live, they don’t pay for us to have a place to live.”  The result, the company withdrew the offer to provide a place for me and the other guy to live.  Did that benefit the current employees from Dickinson?  No, it only caused me and the other guy to have to live in campers on the company property, it had no benefit to the current employees.

After the offer of company subsidized housing was withdrawn, the current Dickinson employees started to say, “That ain’t right, you get to stay in your camper on the company property and not pay rent.  We have to pay rent for where we live.”  I explained that I had a house, I had to pay for that house, property tax, homeowners insurance, utilities.  My house was in a different state, I did not need or want another house, I just came here to work.  I wondered to myself, “WTF, why are these people so intent on making sure that you don’t get anything, when it doesn’t affect them, they just want to see that you aren’t getting anything.”

The second company that I went to work for in Dickinson, I stayed in my camper on the company property.  So did a friend of mine who I will call “SA”.  “SA” went to the Dickinson DMV to change his driver’s license to a North Dakota license.  The DMV lady asked for his current address, and “SA” gave her the construction company address.  The DMV lady argued with him that this was not his address, until she did not want to argue any more, and she telephoned the police.  “SA” was arrested for providing false information to the DMV.  The charges were dropped when the prosecutor realized the address that “SA” gave, was actually where he was living, oops!  What benefit did the DMV get from refusing to give “SA” a North Dakota driver’s license?  “SA” had a job, he lived at the construction company yard, and he continued to live there for another two years, working for the company.  He did not earn enough money to afford $1,500 per month for a one bedroom apartment, plus utilities.

I will give a couple of examples of the experiences of local people, who have lived here their whole lives.  A friend of mine, who I will call “DS”, owned thirty acres of vacant land outside of Dickinson.  “DS” did not make much money, but due to a circumstance that came up, he had the opportunity to buy a used manufactured home for roughly $3,000, about ten years ago, but he had to get it moved to his property.  He checked with Stark County to find out what the rules and requirements were, he wanted to place the manufactured home on his property.  He was informed by the county that he could not move the manufactured home onto his property and live in it like he wanted.  He accepted their reason.  It was not until someone moved a manufactured home onto an adjacent property several years later, that he found out that he had been lied to.  He told me that he felt like some people at the county had disliked him, and they just didn’t want to see him get ahead.

A life long resident of Dickinson, who I will call “CL”, who has a degree in business, has told me many stories of trying to start businesses, trying to gain employment, and opportunities in Dickinson.  When he was young, thirty years ago, a house or a property would become available, ones in which he figured he made enough money to be able to buy if he really lived frugally, but he could manage.  He asked older business people in the community what they thought about him buying that land, if they thought it was a good idea or not.  They told him oh no, no, no, bad idea.  Sometimes he had an idea to start a business, he would use his money, and borrow some additional money from family members, and he was told, oh no, no, no, bad idea, from business people who had a say in it, like a bank, or a supplier.  As he got older, and he saw other people start the businesses that he had wanted to start, and their businesses grew, he said he thought, “WTF, why did everybody try to talk me out of, or try to stop me, from starting that business, or buying that house?  Why did I listen to those people?  It turns out they just didn’t want me to succeed, they were jealous or something!”

You may or may not have experienced this before, where you live in a town, or work for a company, where people try to block you from something.  You may want to buy a property, start a business, get a job, get a promotion, and people try to prevent this from happening, not because they want what it is that you want, they just can’t stand to see someone else get ahead.  I used to think of it this way, “They don’t want to put in the time and energy to start a business or get a promotion in order to advance themselves, but, by God, if they can help it, you’re not going to get ahead either!”  Just like crabs in a bucket, pulling each other back.

Oil Field Speculation in Dickinson, Part II

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I hope that you have read “Oil Field Speculation in Dickinson, Part I”, but it is not absolutely necessary to be able to follow along with this “Oil Field Speculation in Dickinson, Part II”.

In 2011, I met here in Dickinson a truck driver who had grown up in Gillette, Wyoming.  I will use the initials “SA” for this individual to protect his identity.  When “SA” was a kid, there was an oil and gas drilling boom in Gillette, Wyoming.  He said he remembered new apartment buildings being built and new manufactured homes being brought in.  He remembered people buying new trucks, motorcycles, boat, and RVs.  “SA” remembered his father standing around with other people, and they were all agreeing,”…this economy here in Gillette is so big now, it can’t fail, it’s big enough now to go on its own, it doesn’t depend on those oil field jobs, we got so many people living here now…”.  Within a few years, the trucks, motorcycles, boats, and RVs were being repossessed.  Whole apartment buildings became vacant or were never completed.  The oil and gas drilling had stopped.

Here in Dickinson, there appears to be the belief that there are so many people in Dickinson, that the economy is big enough to not be dependent on the oil drilling.  As an example of this belief, look at the new apartment buildings that have been constructed in 2012, 2013, and 2014.  There are approximately eighty new units at the south end of State Avenue, approximately two hundred new units at the north end of State Avenue, approximately eighty new units near the new Menards, approximately one hundred fifty new units north of the North Park RV Park.  Just to the west of Tooz Construction there are about one hundred new units.  I have probably left out some of the new apartment buildings.  The North Park RV Park, the Heart River RV Park, and the South Park Trailer Park have probably doubled in size.  There are about four new large “Extended Stay” hotels.

I partly want to find fault with the real estate developers/investors, and then again I don’t.  It is good that there are more places to live in Dickinson, it was necessary to have more places to live.  If you have read my previous blogs, you can’t stay at WalMart, the truck stops, or Patterson Lake anymore.  You can’t live in a tent in someone’s backyard for $700 a month anymore.  However, I don’t know how much longer the new housing units are going to be needed.  The real estate developers/investors and new home buyers have got to be thinking that the oil drilling is going to continue for more than several years, either that, or they think that the economy is so big in Dickinson now that it is not entirely dependent on oil drilling.

An indication that the real estate developers/investors have seen the possibility of the oil drilling not lasting more than several years, is the extremely high rent prices. You might have read in my previous blogs that a one bedroom apartment will be at least $1,500 per month, and that a two or three bedroom apartment will be $2,000 to $3,000 per month.  The high rent, I believe, is in part due to the real estate developers/investors realizing that the oil drilling could stop, and that they need to get back the money they invested as soon as possible, while they still can.

My point in this particular blog, is again, to look at what has happened in the past.  In Gillette, Wyoming, there was an oil and gas drilling boom, many new housing units were created, with the expectation that the economy would not fail.  When the drilling stopped, apartment buildings became vacant or were never completed.  Be aware of what could happen, and plan accordingly.

Start of Blog Dickinson58601.com

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I first came to Dickinson, North Dakota, in 2011.  I had a home and a business in another state, but business was bad in that state.  I wanted, and needed, to make more money.  I lived in Dickinson for eight months.  I returned to Dickinson in 2013, and have now been here for sixteen months.

I wanted to express some of my thoughts about Dickinson.  If you are from out of state and living in Dickinson, many of you will know exactly what I am talking about, when you read them. If you are from Dickinson and have lived here most of your life, some of the things that I say might not have been apparent to you.

If you are living in a different state and are considering moving to North Dakota, I would like to caution you.  Several times in my life, I have moved to another state to start over.  The things that you go through, such as finding a place to live, finding a job, getting your driver’s license changed, getting your vehicle registration changed, meeting new people, finding things to do, it is not the same in North Dakota.

Unfortunately, the information that you get from an official city website does not really describe what living in that city is like, and the Chamber of Commerce website will also try to present a city in a completely positive manner.  In the past, I have been cursing mad, when I have come to find out that an area I had moved to had something that “I wished somebody had told me about.”

To start this blog off, I will list some positive things about Dickinson, North Dakota, and some negative things.

The positive:

  • Dickinson has a nice recreation center, called the West River Community Center.  It has an indoor pool, indoor tennis courts, indoor basketball courts, a weight area, rock climbing wall, and a few more things.  It is open to everyone for a moderate daily fee, or a fairly low priced membership.
  • Right in Dickinson, there is a lake, called Patterson Lake, that is nice to visit.  Approximately seventy percent of the perimeter of the lake is undeveloped and is available for walking or cooking out.  It is open to everyone, and in the summer there is a small daily fee.
  • There are more jobs openings in Dickinson right now than you will find in other cities.

The negative:

  • The cost of housing in Dickinson is so high, that even if you are well paid, the cost of housing could easily take fifty percent or more of your take home pay.
  • Your opportunity for recreation and socializing is extremely limited.  Dickinson is cold for about seven months out of the year, during these cold months, you will not want to spend a lot of time outdoors.  You might want to enjoy having some drinks at a bar or restaurant, meeting people, talking to people, but it is not safe to do this in Dickinson, because you will soon get a DUI.  I am in my 40s, and never in my life have I seen normal adult socializing crushed more than the DUI process in Dickinson, arrest first, test blood alcohol level later, post bail, $3,000 to attorney, probably dismissal if your BAC was below .08 to begin with.  This has never happened to me, but it has happened to so many people that I know, and I have seen the police doing this, that it is too dangerous to go to bars in Dickinson.
  • There are way more men in Dickinson than women.  There is a shortage of women in Dickinson.  There is such a shortage of women in Dickinson, that the good looking house wives in Dickinson have to hide, and try to get their shopping and errands done between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. before the men get off work.  I lived in Dickinson for over a year thinking that there were only ugly women in Dickinson, until one day, I went to the grocery store at 4:30 p.m., and there they were! very good looking women!  I didn’t know what to do, I couldn’t figure out what was happening, they had been hiding all along!

The most important thing that I can say to those of you who are living in a different state, is that if you are thinking about coming here, the cheapest one bedroom apartment that you can find will probably be about $1,500 per month, a two bedroom apartment will be about $2,000 to $3,000 per month.  Most of the job openings in Dickinson will pay about $15 per hour.  Most of the people in Dickinson that I have met, worked with, lived with, have made between $12 to $22 per hour. Some of the highest paid people that I have met, a union electrician who worked a lot one year made $90,000, and a drill rig boss that I met probably made a little over $100,000.  I have personally met at least five truck drivers working here that were broke, due to not being paid at all or being poorly paid.