[avichal]

I ended up with renting a mansion in Atherton right off of Fair Oaks for dirt cheap for about a year. If you look at the tickets, a lot of them are on the streets around Fair Oaks since that's also a short path to/from Redwood City and the highway.

I would bet a lot of money that the profiling is done based on the type of car you drive and intended to keep people from Redwood City out of Atherton.

I drive an older Civic and my girlfriend drives a really beat up old Civic. We would get followed home down El Camino and Fair Oaks basically every day. To the point that the police learned that our Civics actually belonged in that Atherton block and then stopped following us after a few months. I had friends come over in expensive cars and hang out and not a single one was followed. I asked them specifically to keep an eye on if they were followed because the profiling was so blatant with me. The expensive cars were never followed.

For what it's worth, I think that's what a lot people in Atherton pay their local government for. They don't want people there who don't live in Atherton. You go to Atherton to get away from people, e.g. lots are massive because you don't want to see your neighbors, and there aren't sidewalks or street lights in most of Atherton because they don't want people walking around at night. Because if you're rich and don't want to see your neighbors, why would you walk around at night? Funnily, the train station is right there too and the Caltrain only stops in Atherton on the weekends because they don't want the poor commuters being able to get in or out of Atherton during the week. So it's not surprising that the data shows the community police force is doing exactly what the community pays them to do - keep people who don't live in Atherton out of the city.

[helmut_hed]

Caltrain only stops in Atherton on the weekends because they don't want the poor commuters being able to get in or out of Atherton during the week

FWIW Atherton was one of the least used stations on the Caltrain line, and the nearby Menlo Park and Redwood City stations get very good service. So eliminating service made a good deal of sense. I can't explain why they still stop there on weekends, though...

[zinssmeister]

when jogging in Atherton, I'd sometimes not make it home before dusk, and on multiple occasions I had a police car follow me, shining lights in my face to make sure I'm "someone" that belongs in Atherton.

[MysticFear]

wowow wait... screw the police and story. How do you find these dirt cheap mansions for rent?!

[avichal]

The guy who owned the mansion was a former entrepreneur who didn't want to live in the Bay Area but owned this giant house, and several other very expensive properties. To pay the property taxes on all of these places, he bought/sold very expensive items, and this stuff would get shipped to his house. But he didn't want to leave it outside for long and needed someone trustworthy to bring it in doors. That person was me.

So I would once a week drag a giant box filled with something expensive into the garage, and some guy would come by later and load it into a truck and carry it off. The guy who owned the house could then live in Tahoe or Hawaii or Florida in his other mansions, with the peace of mind of knowing he could pay his tax bills with 0 effort on his part.

In return, I got to live in a 6 bedroom house with a pool, basketball court, 2 gardens...for the cost of the utilities. In case you're curious, I found this guy on Craigslist when he was trying to rent the mansion at the bottom of the real estate bust and he just liked me, so we set up this special arrangement.

[rdl]

It's a highly inefficient market. Very few people want to rent anything for >$5-10k/mo -- they'd usually (stupidly) prefer to "not throw money away on rent" and either pay $50k/mo for a mortgage on that property, or spend the same amount on a much cheaper house mortgage. (or, in more reasonable cases, pay $2-5k/mo on rent).

If you can keep your neighbors in check, I think $10k/mo mansions make awesome startup offices, too. That's what everyone does in the Middle East/Caribbean/etc., and works well enough in the Bay Area, too, until you hit a lot of employees.

[beachstartup]

basically you can rent a mortgage from home owners who bought their mansions when they were still reasonably priced. the rent/mortgage ratios are still reasonable - however, the baseline is just a lot higher than your typical 2 bedroom condo.

many times the actual home owner lives in a much cheaper place. maybe in an apartment in the city, maybe in a bigger house in south carolina where they have servants and a fleet of classic cars. who knows.

it's how rent vs. mortgage is supposed to work.

[hkmurakami]

if you * really * don't wan't neighbors they should move to woodside or portola valley where lot sizes are even bigger. :p

[nostrademons]

It's kinda interesting to me to see what Californians consider a big lot. I grew up in the Northeast suburbs of Boston, and my parents owned an acre lot. I went to school in central Massachusetts, and many of my friends lived on 5-10 acre properties.

When I moved out to California, it was really depressing to see the rows and rows of townhomes on postage-stamp lots. A family friend would show me around Cupertino, where typical houses are on about 1/4 acre, and he'd say that the land alone is worth $1M as a teardown. Looking through some real estate listings, I found that if I wanted an acre lot, basically the only option in Silicon Valley is Atherton (or Portola/Woodside/Saratoga). And it'll cost around $5M.

My parents spent $60K on their home - granted, it was a while ago, but it's still not worth close to $1M. My friends' houses in Central Mass were maybe $150-200K. There are downsides to living where everybody is rich.

[easytiger]

> When I moved out to California, it was really depressing to see the rows and rows of townhomes on postage-stamp lots.

Never move to the UK