Child Predators Are in Your Neighborhoods, Maybe Even Right Next Door

When we moved to our new home, we thought we had checked into everything. All the important stuff was covered. The local school system, how far is it to work, the taxes and the general quality of the neighborhood. We realized very quickly that we had forgotten to look for one key ingredient. the one thing we absolutely could not afford to miss. Child Predators.

Everything was great in the new house, the kids made friends quickly. Our house became the sleepover hot spot. Not a weekend went by that there weren't kids crashing at our house for the night, sometimes even the weekend. It was, as they say, "the way it's supposed to be".

My wife and I have always wanted to be the cool parent's. Not so cool that we didn't provide a disciplined household, that would raise well behaved, respectful children. We believe that we have accomplished our goal so far. It was a great place to live with little of the problems we encountered in our previous home.

Things started changing around Halloween last year. A few day's before the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, hit television, and the kids get dressed up to bombard neighborhood houses for free candy, these little red flags started going up. Now, I don't mean little red flags in the proverbial sense, I mean actual little red flags started appearing in yards throughout the very large subdivision that we lived in. I had no clue what these were for. Then a flier was delivered to our door, by a local residents group. On this flier contained the information regarding those little red flags, and the purpose that they served. They were placed on the lawns of those people who are on the registered sex offenders list. To let parent's know where the wolves were hiding. To keep the children away from the doors of the sickos that lived right beside them. How easy it would be for a Predator to snatch a child that walked right up to their door.

I was in total disbelief, not only because the nearest red flag was only 2 doors away, but that there were So many Red Flags in the first place. I was given a website to check for the local registered sex offender's list. See it here: http://offender.fdle.state.fl.us/offender/Search.jsp .