#202 – The Expat Files: Buying Property, Earthquakes, and Life in Latin America

Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.

[00:00] South of the border down Mexico way That's where I fell in love when the stars above came up to play and now as I wonder My thoughts ever straight Hi everybody I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to the expat files Living in Latin America the show that tells you what it's really like to live work play and or retire in Latin America I tell it just like it is so let's get started Here's a little update on my expat wisdom Latin American seminar in January as I record this right now about a week before the show Will go out it appears the seminar is sold out or very nearly so quite a few people have contacted me saying they really want to

[00:47] Go, but they're juggling their dates and their schedules right now, so they have good intentions, but they haven't actually signed up yet So that means I've got one or maybe two spots left So if you're interested go to expat wisdom comm and click on the seminar link enough said about that How about some expat files? I? wasn't quite able to finish up last week's show when I was talking about buying a first world style property down here and Finding great deals even in Latin cities that have many real estate bubbles I mentioned all that it takes is keeping your eyes open looking in the newspapers and buying from a distressed owner that way you can Get a tremendous deal anyway when you buy a place that's first world or a relatively first world like I said in last week's show You'll find that the exterior of the building is nearly always very well built solid and nicely constructed after all these are

[01:35] Considered upscale places compared to run-of-the-mill construction down here And of course I'm talking about the kind of housing that us expats like to get in on Very few of us would ever settle for typical run-of-the-mill Latin construction that the middle and lower classes occupy That stuff's closer to white trash trailer park housing than it is to anything else And that's no offense to any of you trailer park expat wannabes up there that might be listening So anyway the exterior of the houses and condos that we're interested in are so well built and have so much concrete and plaster That I'm sure they'll outlast by a hundred or more years The usual stud and drywall construction up in the first world and the interior hallways and common areas Outside sitting areas and the lawns and gardens especially the gardens will really surprise you

[02:23] Oftentimes the quality of that stuff is above and beyond what you could ever hope to get up in the first world for five Or ten times the price after all the cement brick and wood workers down here as well as the gardeners come from an old Colonial Spanish tradition, it's called echo a mano Which means handmade or doing things by hand not to mention the fact that most of Latin America isn't a seismic zone That means down here. No place is completely immune from earthquakes because of that They always seem to overbuild the basic structure. They make it massive They use a lot of concrete a lot of rebar and very heavy thick footings Which of course is a very good thing for expats and wannabes to know since if there's one thing They ask me about all the time. It's those occasional devastating earthquakes

[03:09] They see on the six o'clock news up in Cleveland And you know most builders don't build in that heavy-duty style out of the goodness of their hearts or because they want to see the Building last three or four hundred years. It's just that if they don't overbuild with the basic structure cracks and imperfections will start showing up before the buildings even complete and then the contractor will have to go back and fix that wall Staircase again because you can't deliver a brand new house or a building to its new owner with cracks in it Can you and now I'm sure you're thinking why would there be cracks in a brand new building anyway? Why would that happen? Well, let me explain by mentioning like I did last week that the average house condo or building takes about a year to build Considering the six-month rainy season and all in that year's time while it's being constructed

[03:56] There's bound to be any number of small tremors. That'll shake the building just a little bit Many tiny seismic events most of them not even perceptible in fact many years ago when I lived in Costa Rica I was told by a geologist that San Jose Costa Rica for one has over a thousand registered seismic events a year with only about a dozen or more that people can actually feel and by the way about every 25 to 50 years they get a doozy they just had one in San Jose a month or so ago It was a seven-pointer you might have seen that on the news and who do you think suffered? Well, it wasn't the middle and upper classes their houses are built to withstand a seven-pointer It's the lower middle classes in the poor the ones with the rickety tin shack houses that you see turned to rubble on the six o'clock news

[04:44] so anyway in the kind of housing that we are interested in living in if the walls aren't reinforced with concrete and Adequately thick from the get-go That's when those telltale hairline cracks are gonna show up somewhere in the building structure And you know when expat wannabes asked me about the earthquake situation down here the truth is about every month or so no matter where you are you'll be sitting in your easy chair or resting in your bed and you'll feel just a little bit of a Vibration for 10 seconds or so and if you don't hear any noises like gentle rattling of the windows Then you're probably experiencing a two or three on the Richter scale But if the windows are some things on your shelf start rattling just a little bit You're probably experiencing between a three or a four and up to a four on the Richter scale people don't even worry about it

[05:31] There's no panic. No one dials 911 our phones up their loved ones People don't jump out of their chairs grab a railing or head under a door jam like the worst is yet to come The only people that do that are fresh green gringos down here for the first time people who don't know any better Just remember occasional little tremors like that are perfectly normal And here's another thing when one tremor comes no matter how small or large Usually you get two or three more that follow up within the next five minutes to an hour and 95% of the time They're smaller than that first one And by the way if you live out in the boonies a bit where it's pretty quiet away from the noises of the city If you're down here long enough You'll notice that a lot of times animals will start acting queer a couple of minutes before a medium or large

[06:16] Your size tremor you'll notice your dog will act a bit strange or a flock of birds will just shoot out from a distant tree I don't know if anybody's doing a bona fide study on that phenomena But I tell you what it would be a really good master's thesis And by the way expat Eddie says where he lives in El Salvador There's an empty lot across the street and his kitchen faces it and Eddie's reported the same kind of thing he says like clockwork a couple of minutes before your standard little temblor a little family of cornish hands Will walk single file across the road and normally those birds are so timid you almost never see them So Eddie's got his own private early warning system going the one thing I think you should remember about earthquakes here is that they're as common as crooked politicians and the small ones below five on the Richter

[07:04] Scale are called Tim blood is that's Tim blood is and if you look at that word on the printed page It looks like the English word tremble Making that word association for English speakers very easy to remember and that's one thing I really like about the Spanish language a good 20 to 25 percent of Spanish words look somewhat like their counterparts in English So if you're a little creative you can make a very educated guess at the meaning of a lot of Spanish words And by the way if your earthquake is bigger than a temblor on the Richter scale bigger than a 5.5 Then down here they call it a terry moto That's terry moto, which means more or less in English earth mover So all the big earthquakes that you read about up north like the one a few years ago in Chile and the one recently in

[07:50] Costa Rica both of those were seven pointers or a little more so they weren't temblores They were terry moto's and the word terry comes from the word tiara Which means earth in Spanish and moto means move or movement like the first four letters in the word motor? M-o-t-o-r and by the way down here. They called motorcycles motos, too They both use the root word moto and in this case It's the shortened form of the word moto sick letter moto of course meaning motor and sick let them meaning cycle And it makes sense the word sick letter coming from the word moto sick letter Motorcycle looks an awful lot like the English word cycle on the printed page same thing with bicycle which in Spanish is

[08:36] Bisicleta, that's Bisicleta See how easy it is to decipher that word even if you don't know a lick of Spanish So even if your Spanish sucks Don't be afraid to come down because you will pick it up in a hurry and you know all this earthquake talk reminds me of yet Another expat Eddie story a long time ago when I first met Eddie every time the subject of earthquakes or temblores would come up I noticed that Eddie would crack a mischievous smile Especially when you mentioned the earthquakes number on the Richter scale And I just couldn't figure out why Eddie had that smirk on his face So one day Eddie and I were sitting at a beach bar in Honduras And we felt a little temblor and when it was over I turned to Eddie and said Eddie how big on the Richter scale But Eddie didn't answer instead. He just started in with that smirk again, so I said Eddie. It's a simple question

[09:26] What do you think that was on the Richter scale, and he smirked a bit more and said oh? I don't know maybe a three three and a half. Why do you always grin like that when we talk about earthquakes? What's that all about? Then he laughed and said you really want to know then he shook his head and said Johnny You never met my ex-wife up in Texas. I said you mean the one that stabbed you in the leg And he nodded and he looked down at the four-inch scar on his shin And he said yeah, Johnny, and you know what her maiden name was Richter. Just like the earthquake scale How's that for synchronicity? Then Eddie said he used to rate their fights one to ten on the Richter scale and she just hated that But Eddie said she was nothing compared to her mother his mother-in-law Richter

[10:12] According to him she was like a 12 on the Richter scale followed by a couple of killer tsunamis But where was I oh yeah? I was talking about how well constructed these first world style buildings are down here And how nicely done the exteriors common areas and gardens are But like I said in last week's show once you get inside the actual living spaces whether it's a house or a condo It seems like bad taste or lack of taste in general is the rule even latins with money Especially latins with money. They should know better Well, it's as if no one's ever heard of matching color schemes lighting techniques or general rules of interior decoration It seems like the nouveau riche latins the ones that acquired their money recently They've got trailer court tastes and old latin money that's been around for generations

[11:00] Their houses and big old mansions are just jam packed with antiques and heirlooms heavy old dark bulky stuff And there always seems to be way too much of it all that clutter in a badly lit room to boot Picture an old-fashioned spanish villa from the mask of zoro the whole thing lit by a 25 watt bulb I mean a big room with a nice fireplace and a lot of fine plaster wood and wrought iron detail Could be nice, huh? Except they never throw anything away and they live in the shadows like vampires And that's one of the biggest gripes us expats have when we look at existing houses and condos for sale in nearly every case The lighting is not only abysmal But the fixtures that they put in don't match the style of building at all and are usually just cheap junk from china

[11:48] You know what i'm talking about that flimsy plastic brass plated stuff from home depot that cheap first world landlords put in their rental units Worse yet latins even wealthy ones are in the habit of using bear light bulbs inside and out Like you do in your basement up in cleveland Some don't even bother with the home depot cheap and junky fixtures made in china But don't let that get you down if you're looking to rent or buy you just do like most gringos do When you get in there you tear out all those horrid cheap fake brass fixtures And you go down to any one of the dozens and dozens of lighting fixture shops And you buy some good solid nice looking fixtures And don't worry if you find that the bedrooms only have one 40 watt fixture in the center of the room You can hire an electrician for 20 or 25 bucks a day

[12:36] And you know i'm an engineer myself at least I used to be one in a past life And I can install electrical stuff like that in my sleep And when I did live back in chicago in that past life I was pretty much a master do-it-yourself where I did plumbing electrical concrete and woodworking you name it anything my house is needed I did the work myself. Why not because I like doing it. You think I like bruised knuckles in a sore back Well, I preferred that to paying a plumber electrician 50 to 75 bucks an hour that hurts more than bruised knuckles But you know old habits die hard and when I first got down here to latin america I'd do the same thing i'd buy a house or rent a place And to bring the fixtures and the amenities up to first world standards. I'd do the work myself Well, that was pretty stupid. But what did I know? It takes a long time to sink in but when you realize you can hire a plumber or an electrician

[13:26] The real thing not just to fly by nighter for 25 bucks a day Why should you risk bashing your hands or falling off a ladder? Oh and speaking of tearing up your hands You know, like I said all the good construction down here is concrete and block with a real plaster coating on it So if you buy an existing house or condo down here that has inadequate light fixtures and believe me They all do the only way to install them where you want them is to start busting holes in concrete Which believe me is one of the hardest and dirtiest jobs you can think of now I might mention this is a time when you really have to keep an eye on these guys because they make a terrible mess They take zero precautions with the dust and the dirt that's gonna obviously filter in your closets into other rooms in the building So before they even get started

[14:11] What you're gonna have to do is you're gonna have to shut the doors and throw tarps on your desks and furniture And protect your porcelain sinks in your bathtubs or you're gonna be picking powder at your navel for months And that's why I always recommend when you get settled down here First thing go to a hardware store and buy about three of those big blue plastic tarps and anytime you have any inside work done You lay them out in the proper places because your workers won't Oh and another thing I really have to mention the vast majority of latin families do not have a vacuum cleaner in the house And the ones that do have them often don't use them because they've broken down And why is that it's a maintenance issue again or a lack of it not to mention down here They're in extravagance not that they're expensive It's just that people aren't used to having them and since gringos and middle and upper class people always have maids doing the cleaning

[15:02] The maids themselves never had vacuum cleaners in their houses in the lower class neighborhoods They lived in so when they clean they just use brooms dust pans and mops and because of that Your cleaning lady will abuse your vacuum cleaner terribly unless you give her precise instructions on how to use it and maintain it She'll ruin it And you know i'm all for having a vacuum cleaner around the house, but not a normal one You really should get one of those shop vacs that sucks water You know the ones you buy at sears and home depot and hardware stores and why is that? Well, most gringos think they're doing their cleaning lady a big favor by buying a vacuum cleaner chances are that's the first vacuum cleaner She's ever used in her life So first of all if you don't teach her how to change and empty the bag She'll never do it and even if you do give her the right in-house training on that she'll use it to suck up everything

[15:53] Including glass and nails and dog vomit and water Which of course will ruin a motor in your average vacuum cleaner, but not with a shop vac Those things are made to suck up liquids and they're practically indestructible So do get a shop vac right away And then give your maid a nice thorough lesson on how to empty the tank and change the bag or she'll never do it And by the way, a lot of cleaning ladies refuse to deal with technology in general For example, my cleaning lady won't use the microwave She won't use the vacuum cleaner or the dishwasher or garbage disposal Why because she's genuinely afraid of them? And i've tried to show her how to use the microwave to heat up water for instant coffee her instant coffee I would never drink that crap speaking of instant coffee

[16:39] It's so ironic here. I am in the best coffee country in the world And my cleaning lady and all the people of her class who live around here prefer Rot-gut instant coffee to the real thing and that's true all over latin america You'll find that nearly all the common people middle class and lower drink horrible rot-gut instant coffee and all the middle and lower class Restaurants serve it like that too And I was told that the reason for this is that 60 to 70 percent of latin americans still use wood to cook their food And the vast majority of those people don't even have a microwave to heat water I mean look at the numbers a cheap microwave's around a hundred bucks, right? That's three months salary for an average person like that So for them it's just a lot easier to heat up a little water on that wood-burning stove and make some instant rot-gut coffee

[17:29] And the lower classes don't buy mr. Coffee machines either Now that's a real extravagance considering the average cleaning lady makes about 150 to 250 a month In their little houses. They still live like people did a hundred years ago in the states Believe it or not where the average cleaning lady or maid comes from usually from a farm out in the sticks The average little farmhouse doesn't have indoor plumbing or even glass in the windows That's the kind of rustic background they come from so now all of a sudden They're working for a first world gringo with a trash compact or a garbage disposal a microwave oven and a dishwasher I know it sounds strange, but most maids are afraid to use that stuff So what do you do? Well, you be patient and you give them lessons Oh, and by the way, very few people down here have clothes dryers electric or gas

[18:17] Sometimes even very wealthy people don't have them That's because your cleaning lady does the laundry and she prefers to dry them the old-fashioned way And that's why even when you drive past a mansion a really wealthy person's home If you peek over the fence, you'll see all kinds of bras and underwear hanging on the clothes line Usually right alongside a perfectly good but never used clothes dryer Oh, and here's another statistic for you 30 to 40 percent of latin families do not have a washing machine That means mother grandma or the kids the female kids after all this is a macho society You know are doing the laundry by hand the same way it's been done for hundreds of years And that's why when you hire a cleaning lady, you're going to have to show her how to use your washing machine, too

[19:02] That's one machine she'll learn to use in a hurry since hand washing really sucks So where was I? Oh, yeah I was talking about adding extra lights and light fixtures to your house and how messy latin plumbers carpenters and electricians are when they install stuff And by the way, it's not just a shortage of lights and light fixtures that you're going to find throughout latin houses You're also going to find a huge shortage of electrical plug-in outlets In fact in no time a bedroom or a kitchen starts looking like a scene from the three stooges And because like I said good solidly constructed buildings that are anti seismic are made of block cement rebar and plaster That means adding an extra outlet is a huge job because you got to blast through that stuff It's not like adding an extra outlet in a room where it's us first world construction where you have dry wall

[19:51] Wood studs and a lot of air space in between even a klutzy do-it-yourselfer can snake romex through that But down here when you're retrofitting light fixtures or electric outlets, you got to blast out long deep channels Sometimes 10 15 or 20 feet long deep into the plaster cement and block to connect the electrical feed wires to the nearest outlet box And now you've got a big mess on the floor and a big unsightly trench in the wall That's got to be replastered and you never want to do that job yourself But not to worry after they've done the electrical or plumbing job These guys can fill in that wall with plaster and finish off that surface so that you never even realize they'd touch that wall at all Now this might sound like a contradiction because I always say that latins aren't into details at all

[20:38] What's good enough for them is almost never good enough for us But you can get a nice job out of them if when you hire them you spell out the rules right away And you kind of hover over them while they're doing the job And you make your presence especially known at the end when they're completing the job That way you can force them to spend a little extra time to get the finished details down the way you want them Now the worst thing you can do is to set the guy working on the project While you leave the house and come back some hours later, then you're just asking for a subpar job Because like I always stress these guys are very capable But since the latins they work for aren't demanding at all They can get away with a sloppy crappy looking job as long as the plumbing fixture works or the light turns on That's why you gotta be there to watch these guys

[21:26] But the good thing is once you've whipped one of these guys into shape and he knows your demands and the way you want things If and when you call him back to do another job for you You'll get nice work out of him without any supervision at all And since we're on the subject of maintenance around your house or condo if you do end up buying a place chances Are you going to need an extension ladder always a good idea to have around any house, right? So sure you can go out and spend a couple hundred bucks on a nice extension ladder But you probably will never have to do that up north Yes, but not down here in latin america because you see it's common practice for maintenance guys and even small-time contractors To make their own ladders on the job out of wood You think the average maintenance guy plumber electrician or even carpenter has a couple of hundred bucks to blow on a ladder

[22:13] Think of it for most of these guys. That's a month's salary That's the equivalent of the average first world guy spending three or four thousand dollars on his ladder That would be a month's salary for him So you see since the store bought ladder is out of the average latin american's price range They all know how to whip together a ladder of any size or length just out of available scraps of wood So don't think just because you're a homeowner. You got to go out and buy that kind of stuff Well, you can if you want, but it's never really necessary unless it's your hobby to tinker around the house yourself After all you're going to have a lot of time on your hands So you'll need a hobby or two. Oh, I forgot the other reason construction guys don't have store-bought ladders Is because they don't have cars or pickup trucks to haul them in either Okay, enough said about that

[22:59] You know people ask me all the time if they use genetically altered crops You know frankenstein crops in latin america like they have up in the first world Well, i've mentioned in past shows that down here There's very few farmers using genetically altered seeds Anyway, not the medium and small-time farmers that sell their stuff at the big produce markets But every now and again in the big newspapers down here I see the odd article talking about genetically altered products depicting them in a very positive light As if they were the be all to end all in farming For example, i'm looking at one of these articles in the paper right now And it says latin farmers should get on board because it's a great idea And after reading this whole article, which is nothing but propaganda from the usda and first world biogenetic specialists from companies like

[23:45] Monsanto and dao who else? And you know, I don't like seeing articles like this at all Because latin's love everything and anything first world so they're bound to eat this crap up hook line and sinker So as you might expect the dirty business of transgenics is working its way down to latin america and luckily for us There's a huge lag time down here. The fact is in 80 percent of latin countries No farmers are using transgenics at all But there are some large-scale farmers who are like corn farmers in mexico and sugar farmers in argentina and columbia And now because of all this positive transgenetic propaganda latin american governments are creating commissions to promote Transgenics in their countries funded of course by big american conglomerates that produce these seeds like dao and monsanto

[24:34] Who else? Anyway, these new government commissions or bureaus to promote transgenics are now in full swing in cuba costa rica honduras brazil argentina chile and columbia and what's their next move? Well, they're going to start by having seminars in big latin american cities bringing down so-called first world specialists and genetics Like this shill from the university of georgia named wayne parrott a professor of biogenetics who's quoted in the article. I read Saying the following introducing genetically modified crops to latin america will help the population better feed themselves As well as make the country's crops more competitive on the world market And then he spawns the usual company line from the us food and drug administration saying that the fda has done all the studies

[25:23] Establishing that genetically modified foods pose no risk to human health Hmm, then here's an idea Why don't we make this guy dao and monsanto and everyone in the fda go on an exclusive diet of only gmo foods? Then we can watch their babies come out retarded and with two heads. What do you think good idea, huh? Anyway on a more serious note actually I was being serious The question is what does the future hold for gmo's in latin america? Well, first of all the vast majority of food producers are small and medium-sized farmers who have about a third grade Education or less and naturally they believe anyone in a suit who appears to be a voice of authority In fact just lately a big agro study of central american farmers revealed that almost none of them are using

[26:13] transgenic seeds yet But the study said that 75 to 80 percent of them would probably try different varieties of transgenic seeds if they were available However, they prefer to concentrate on their present problems the accessibility of water and fertilizer for this season's crop And statistics show that small and medium-sized farms comprise 80 to 85 percent of all farms in latin america And they supply 90 to 95 percent of the produce consumed by the locals In other words small and medium farmers rarely export outside of latin america So the food at your local produce mark is not genetically altered and considering the way lag time operates down here I have a feeling that before genetically altered foods make any kind of inroads at all with the local farmers

[27:01] Everybody and his brother will know that transgenic foods were a very bad idea in the first place And there's another thing in our favor latin farmers are traditional lists. They're very conservative and things move very slowly indeed That means we'll be able to continually have our organic produce at our food markets for the foreseeable future And because farmers don't label it that way there's no need to we'll be able to buy it fresh daily Like we always do at 20 percent of what first world people have to pay for the very same thing You've been listening to the expat files living in latin america coming to you each week from somewhere south of the border And don't forget you can email me on anything at all about latin america the expat files at gmail.com

[27:52] See you next time on expamels