Crete, Greece is a holiday hot spot – millions of tourists arrive every year and most of them fall in love with the food, the lifestyle, the weather, the landscape…with Crete. Many of them begin to consider moving to Crete. Thousands make the move every year hoping that they’ve found their place in the sun. The open secret is that almost as many expats leave Crete every year after finding out their dream of living in an island paradise was a intolerably different from reality. This is called expat failure, an expensive and disappointing condition.
If you’ve thought about moving to Crete, you probably wonder what could make a person leave. The reasons people leave are as varied as their surnames, but there are some conditions that contribute to the heavy expat failure of foreigners on Crete. Curious? Let me kill your dream before it costs you a fortune and part of your spirit. If after reading this, you are still dreaming of moving to Crete you have a better chance of expat success.
5 reasons you shouldn’t move to Crete
You can just afford it
If you’ve been considering moving to Crete and have discovered that you can just afford it, think again. Nothing can make you hate a place more than being unable to leave. If your finances can’t withstand a move both to and from Crete, you can’t afford to move there. Included in your cost calculations should be regular travel to see your family, friends, hometown, or favorite destinations. Travel to and from Crete can be affordable and easy in season, but off season the trip just from Crete to London is long and expensive. This is especially important to know if you will need to work to afford life in Crete – most jobs for expats are related to tourism and you’re unlikely to be able to leave in season if you work in the tourist industry.
Additionally, there is always something you’ve missed – and sometimes that something is really costly. Getting real answers from people about what stuff costs is like pulling teeth. Imagine how my heart beat when we received a 3,000 Euro electricity bill. Investigation uncovered that our meter hadn’t been read in 8 months and the amount we had been paying was an estimate based on the previous year – when our house wasn’t occupied. Perhaps your ‘surprise’ won’t be electricity but instead doctor’s fees, the cost of internet connection, or car repairs. Plan on having an expensive surprise – at worst it won’t happen and you’ll have a financial cushion.
You cannot deny an animal in pain
For every well cared for pet on Crete, there are dozens of starving, neglected, or abused animals. Based on my experience, I think that most Cretans are not abusive to animals, so why are there so many abused animals? Because of the culture. In other cultures, it is taboo to abuse or starve an animal, and offenders are brought to justice when one or several witnesses step in or authorities are notified. This is not the case in Crete. While animal abuse is illegal in Greece, a person who stands up for the abused animal will often be victimized by the offender; people who are cruel to animals aren’t known for their compassion. If you are an animal lover considering moving to Crete, this aspect of life on the island can’t be ignored. Consider what you will do when you see an animal cruelly treated. Will you notify authorities? Will you physically prevent the abuse? Will you steal the animal? All of these things happen, but not without a price.
Some people are able to blind themselves to the situation. Others end up with a house packed with animals whose care eats away financial resources and time. And this great personal sacrifice is a drop in the ocean, it will never solve the problem. Many Cretans have a distaste for neutering animals. One native told me it was unnatural to deprive the animals of their inclination to breed. I don’t know if that’s how most Cretans view neutering, but I do know that for every rescued kitten and pup, there are dozens more on the way. What’s an animal lover to do? If you’re the kind of person who can’t bear to see an animal abused or seriously neglected, how will you handle the many incidents you will witness if you live there year-round?
Before you assert that you will, naturally, not allow abuse to happen without taking action, you should know that such action has consequences. Without passing judgment on Cretan culture, I can say that there is an undercurrent of vendetta. A friend found two dogs in skin-and-bones condition tied at the side of the road. She took them to one of the overpopulated shelters. The next day, four men with guns were at her door demanding their dogs returned. Since the men weren’t there when she took the dogs, obviously a neighbor or passerby reported her activity to the criminally negligent owners. Being a well meaning expat can’t compete with being the cousin of the dog’s owner. People who feel wronged have been known to ‘get back’ at the ‘offender’ by any means necessary – up to and including poisoning pets, physically threatening, and even making up fictional crimes.
Before you move to Crete, think about how you will handle incidents of violence or life threatening neglect of animals, but know that if you do anything and are found out, there can be serious repercussions.
You greatly value rule of law
In the previous section, I mentioned that some people might take revenge by inventing fictional crimes. You probably skimmed over that bit because where you come from, there has to be evidence of a crime in order for someone to be arrested or charged. The list of true incidents where people were arrested by the Cretan police in absence of evidence, and sometimes in absence of a crime could be a book (or a series of books). Even if you’ve never had a speeding ticket, this is something to seriously consider. You don’t have to do anything wrong to be arrested and charged with a crime in Crete. All that is required is someone saying that you did something wrong.
I’m not joking. In frustration with the absurdity of a legal system where evidence that a crime was committed is not required in order to arrest someone, I asked the following question to a Cretan lawyer:
If I didn’t like you, and I went to the police and told them you stole my refrigerator, would they arrest you and seize your refrigerator?
The question was posed to illustrate just how abusive such a system is. In complete seriousness, the lawyer replied, “Yes, if I couldn’t prove that it was mine.”
In Greece, people who are arrested are allowed to be held for 24 hours, after which they are either released or law dictates that they be held because their crime is serious. All that is required to become entangled in the quagmire of the Cretan ‘legal’ system is offending someone who decides to ‘get back at you.’ The offense doesn’t have to be particularly serious, either. Maybe they think you are eyeing their spouse or that their spouse fancies you. Maybe you’ve unknowingly bought a property that they expected to inherit. I’ve always thought that if one kept one’s nose clean and didn’t cause trouble, one could avoid tangles with the law. This is not necessarily true in Crete.
The flip side of the ‘rule of law’ coin is that breaking the law will not necessarily lead to judicial consequence in Crete. In fact, the culture places a great value on ‘getting away’ with breaking the law. Many Cretans view ‘law abiding citizens’ as weak patsies. From tax avoidance to traffic chaos to serious crimes involving bodily harm, finding justice can be an impossible feat. Success depends on how crafty you are, and how well connected the offender is. If the guy who rips you off on home repairs has a cousin or uncle within the justice system and you, a foreigner, don’t really speak Greek fluently, the hurdles are almost impossibly high.
You like peace and quiet, but can’t afford or don’t want a very isolated property
The Cretans really know how to party. Weddings go on all night, celebrations and festivals involve entire villages. The wine flows like water, the food is abundant, the dancing is exciting and involves young and old alike. These are really great times, nearly mystical in the coming together of a community.
The downside is that Cretans aren’t bothered by noise. Not all noise is a village party – it could be your neighbor practicing for his drum solo, the dogs barking, or the fish monger, furniture van, or vegetable truck touting their wares over a roving PA system. Some people are comfortable in a loud environment. Others want peace and quiet when they’re at home. If you’re in the latter group, it might be difficult to find the perfect home on Crete. If you can afford to buy a very isolated house with plenty of land, you should be safe. If not, look out for the following to lessen the chances of never finding peace in your own home.
1. Don’t take a house within 800 meters of a hotel or restaurant that hosts ‘events’ like weddings or work parties. Even a kilometer away, you will hear the music unless your house is really well insulated or old and made from stone, but the noise when you’re closer can make it difficult to sleep or even hear your TV.
2. Don’t take a house within 500 meters of an active church. In one village, the church bells were rung morning and night and on special occasions and to summon the population for meetings. In other words, they rung all the time and they were deafening. In some villages, the services are broadcast on a loudspeaker so that those who can’t attend can hear. Not all churches are like this, but it’s worth investigating just how often those bells will ring.
3. Look for nearby dogs tied outside.These animals will likely not be taken indoors at all and will therefore bark at nearly everything. Don’t forget to check the nearby olive groves – they are sometimes stationed there even if the owners live miles away.
4. How close are the nearest chickens? Many Cretans keep their own flock and believe that hens won’t lay without roosters. Roosters make a lot of noise, not just at dawn.
Even with these precautions, you will be subjected to nearby neighbor’s noise. They have a very high threshold for noise, and live their lives accordingly. It’s difficult to be friendly with your neighbors if they’re driving you crazy simply by living their lives. It would be wrong to try to change their behavior – it’s their country, their island, their village, and their neighborhood. If noise bothers you, you might find it impossible to live peacefully in Crete. Don’t forget that even if when you choose a property there is no one nearby, unless you own the land, the construction could start any day. The only time there is almost a guarantee of quiet is during the afternoon, from 2-6. This is one law that Cretans respect and they expect the same adherence from their neighbors.
You require or will require serious pain management
If you have a disease or condition which will require heavy medications and serious pain management, you might want to re-think moving to Crete. Some otherwise common pain management drugs are illegal in Greece and the ones which are legal are reluctantly administered. If you are in doubt, it could be worth an investigative trip to visit a Greek doctor who speaks English. Ask very direct, probing questions about what drugs are prescribed at what dosages in the presence of unrelenting pain. Don’t accept vague answers like, “we will take care of you” or “we will treat it seriously.” Get hard facts, and make a decision with full knowledge. From what I’ve seen, Greeks expect life to be painful, and don’t seriously pursue pain management in the same manner as other people. Even the terminally ill are often denied sufficient medication to dull their pain.
Conclusion
If these reasons to not live in Crete seem scary, that is not my purpose. During my years on Crete, I saw many expats come and go, and thought that with good, realistic information many of them could have saved themselves a lot of money and disappointment. I cannot tell you whether you should move to Crete or not – that is for you to decide. If after reading this you still want to move to Crete, your chances of success are much greater. Forewarned is forearmed.
