- I hate Charleston.
Okay, I don't really hate Charleston.
I actually love living here,
but there are few things that drive me crazy
that I do hate about it.
(upbeat music)
What's up everybody.
I'm Bill Olson, a local realtor here in Charleston,
and I've lived here for almost eight years now.
So let's get right into it with my six things
that I hate about Charleston.
Number one is the summers are incredibly hot and humid.
Now, we have an average high temperature
of between 87 and about 92.
Doesn't sound too bad, but when you add in the humidity,
it's not uncommon for it to feel like 105
or sometimes even upwards of 115 degrees.
During the summer months,
we see about 41% of our annual rainfall
and the only thing that does when it's this hot,
is it just adds to the humidity.
When it gets to be this hot,
it just makes it miserable to have to go out
and cut the grass, do yard work, be an adult,
but there are ways to combat the heat.
You can head to the beaches and jump in the pool,
there's plenty of indoor activities.
If you wanna go to the aquarium or any of the museums,
but just getting from your car to there,
can make you just sweat profusely.
Number two, I think everyone can agree on
and that is the mosquitoes. (mosquito whines)
Now in 2019, Charleston officially made the top 50 list
of Orkin's Worst Mosquito Cities.
Now, luckily we did get off that list in 2020,
but I don't think anyone informed the mosquitoes
because they're still here.
So why are there so many mosquitoes here in Charleston?
Once temperatures get to about 68 or above
during the evenings, that's when activity
really starts to ramp up for the mosquitoes
and then it really hits peak when it's above 80
and here in Charleston, that can be most months
out of the year.
Number three is the thing that scared me the most
and I still hate it and those are hurricanes.
Living on the coast here, it's kind of a way of life
that every hurricane season,
we're probably gonna get a storm or two,
that's gonna come at us or brush our coast.
Here in Charleston, hurricane season
officially starts on June 1st and ends November 30th.
Now, 90% of our category, three, four, and five storms
do come between mid-August and mid-October.
The only thing I can say about hurricanes
is to just be prepared, have your evacuation routes,
know where you're gonna go
if a big storm is heading towards us
and if you are staying,
make sure you have your hurricane kit with radios,
canned goods, all your phones are fully charged.
If you have a generator, make sure it's got some gas
so that you can run appliances, lights,
charger phones in your house.
It doesn't take away from how scary they are.
I was terrified of my first storm and I'm still kinda scared
when they start coming.
Number four, we're talking about traffic
to get to the beaches.
Now, the beaches here in Charleston,
are located on barrier islands and for the most part,
they have a two-lane road going in and out.
So during the peak summer months,
it's not uncommon to see traffic backed up for a few miles
just to get onto the Island.
A way around this, you know you can always just go
very early in the morning like we do.
So we do have two small children, so we had there early,
and by the time we're leaving the beach,
we're seeing everyone trying to get down there.
And number five is driving downtown.
Downtown can be pretty hard to navigate on its own
with the narrow streets.
Most of them are going one way and it's always the direction
you don't need to go.
That can be frustrating,
but also what you need to pay attention to
are the pedestrians.
Now, this is very frustrating
when you're trying to drive downtown,
because we do have a lot of tourists in the area
and most of them are just looking around
and seeing the sites, they're not paying attention
to where they are and I can't even count the number of times
I've been down there
and someone has almost stepped in front of my car
or another car that I've seen.
Number six, the sales tax here in Charleston.
While we are very fortunate with our taxes
and our property taxes are extremely low for the country,
we do kind of make up for that with our sales tax.
As a state, we have a 6% sales tax.
Charleston County adds another 3% on top of that.
This 3% helps with transportation
and educational capital improvements.
So that brings us to a total of 9% sales tax.
Now, if you're going out to eat
or going to have some drinks with some friends,
be prepared to pay an 11% sales tax,
as Charleston County does add on an additional 2%
to prepared meals, foods, and beverages
that are meant to be consumed on premise.
This can make going out to eat a little bit more expensive
than elsewhere, but at the end of the day,
it's a small price to pay, to be able to go out downtown
and eat at these world-class restaurants.
Let me know what you hate
or even what you love about living here in Charleston.
Drop those down into the comments.
I've got a couple more videos here
that I think you're gonna love and as always,
don't forget to subscribe so you can be notified
anytime I put out more content
about what it's like to live, work and play
right here in Charleston.