Any cultural advice for a soon-to-be transplant? (Lane: buying a house, buying)

[junepharm6]

All great advice here. Having lived in NH (Rochester, Nashua and Hollis) for over 40 years (UNH grad), I will tell you that once you put your feet in the ocean in September and feel how warm it is, you will be amazed, LOL.

You sound very open to new experiences, which is great when moving to a different part of the country. I have enjoyed eating "Southern" specialties and have learned to love oysters (milder than our New England clams) and I can now make cheese grits without burning them, ha ha. It's grits rather than hash browns down here. We have a few Dunkins in the Myrtle area, which is terrific but do look for the Hot Light to be on at Krispy Kreme too. And iced tea is sweet tea, very sweet!
I also so appreciate the custom of calling women "Miss ****", etc. It is a nice way to show respect and familiarity at the same time.

What I miss about New England is seeing a Red Sox hat on every other person! Lots of Yankee's fans here, so beware!

Funny story told by a fellow Red Sox fan at a Red Sox meetup I attended in Atlanta: The newly moved NH transplant heard someone at his new place of work say "I hate Yankees". He then chirped "Hey, I hate the Yankees too!". The fellow worker replied "I'm not talking about the baseball team Sir"....LOL. When I get called a Yankee, I just say "No self-respecting New Englander would ever associate themselves with the term Yankee. I'm a patriot!".

You will see little lizards around and they are called a Carolina Anole....totally harmless. No daddy-long-legs here, that I have seen. Lots of squirrels but no chipmunks. No chickadees either. Lots of cardinals...could not believe it when I saw my first cardinal...so beautiful. When you go to the beach, watch out for jelly fish. You will hardly ever seen seaweed on the beach however.

It's so much easier to start a conversation here with a total stranger. Common intro statement is "Where are you from?"
Haven't found anything similar to the town dump socializing that went on in Hollis. I used to get to talk with my kids teachers and pediatrician at the town dump, LOL.

Can't think of anything else except to maybe encourage you to learn about South Carolina's state dance, the shag. Go to Fat Harold's in North Myrtle on Tuesday evening at 7:00 pm to just listen to Jeppy give his intro to the free shag lesson. The history of how the Carolina Shag began is totally fascinating.

Best of luck with your move and hope you feel as at home here as I do.

[vrexy]

There are lots of chickadees at my bird feeder. In fact I'm looking at one right now.

Carolina Chickadee, Identification, All About Birds - Cornell Lab of Ornithology

I love the little green lizards! I mostly see the geckos who like to crawl in between my screen and windows. Not sure how they manage to squeeze there, but it's very cute to watch them up close like that.

I'm surprised that the first time you saw a cardinal was in SC or did I misunderstand what you said?

Very helpful information in your post, junepharm6.

As far as the shagging, I had read about Fat Harold's but haven't taken the time to go there. Sounds like fun!

[jamamm]

We are definitely going to miss the Sox and all that entails... big Sox fans in this house. In fact, my son's very first phrase was "Boo, Yankees stink!" LOL We live farther north than you did, by a couple of hours. Same New England atmosphere, though.

I won't miss the daddy long legs spiders, that's for sure. I have to go through my whole house every day to get rid of them. No chipmunks? That seems weird. Can't imagine not going outside and talking to the chippies. They come right up to us, practically eat out of our hands.

Shagging looks like fun! We'll have to check that out!

[JMC4]

Well at least I know South Carolina has good taste in baseball! (Coming from a true Yankees fan and New Yorker) LOL

The lizards and geckos sound cute. Is there any way to keep Palmetto bugs from ever coming in to your house? Something about a flying cockroach really freaks me out! Someone please settle my nerves about this, lol

[tmozer]

We had a couple Palmetto bugs in the master bathroom last fall. Freaked my wife out. I put a mouse glue trap (the black ones available in packs of four at Walmart) behind the toilet and in the walk in closet. I sprinkled corn meal in the middle of each. The next day the palmetto bugs were found stuck to the glue. No more seen, but fresh traps remain.

Oh yeah: Go Yankees!!

[jamamm]

OK, you Spankees fans are ruining my thread... lol.

[CTyankee54]

We had a few Palmetto bugs and some locals that I worked with at the time told me to just get the roach traps at Home Depot and spread them around the garage and a few in the house. They certainly worked...found dead bugs within feet of the traps and eventually didn't see any in the house.

[tmozer]

The biggest palmetto bug I hope to ever see crawed out from under my fridge in Florida and ran back under before I could step on it. I purchased roach powder at Lowes and dumped it behind all my appliances. Have not seen a roach since......

[JMC4]

Thank you all for the advice! It's strange that out of all the things I could be scared of (gators, huge snakes, etc) I am only worried about the bugs! LOL! Oh well I guess I will have to toughen up a bit when it comes to big bugs. Or hope that my cat or dog takes care of them for me lol

Jamamm, I have Red Sux fans as friends as well... and this kind of banter sounds familiar, hahaha

[mkaz01]

After 8 years of vacationing here over multiple periods of the year and 7 months actually living here, I have yet to see a palmetto bug. I did see a big ugly spider once that my husband walked into when it made its web across two trees. Now when I go towards the woods to get my wayward golf ball I always wave my golf club in front of me to make sure i clear the way of any webs...