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Last Updated on May 5, 2021 by Natalie

There are some differences between living in the USA, where I’m from and living in Mexico, my current location. Not only do I live in another country, I live in an entirely different climate, too. The weather isn’t the only difference. Let’s jump into those quirky and sometimes frustrating differences between my life in Ohio and my life in Mexico!

Quirky things about living in Mexico

I do love my life in Mexico, but there are a few things that are irksome. This isn’t limited to Mexico. Every country is going to have something. Heck, even a different home will come with a different set of issues. These are just the ones I’ve encountered that bother me or are notable in some way.

Some became problems while living in Queretaro and some have been problems while living in Celaya, Guanajuato. We lived in the latter for 3 years before moving to Queretaro. Let’s get into some of the quirky things about living in Mexico!

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Plumbing woes

Though we happened to have a major plumbing issue the weekend before we moved from the US to Mexico, those woes have continued in Mexico. In our first house in Celaya, we had to have a toilet replaced because the base was cracked. It was cracked and repaired already when we moved in, but eventually the patch gave out and the toilet had to be replaced.

In our case, the landlord paid for the fix. However, this is probably an unusual occurrence in Mexico and the renter would be on the hook for the replacement (check your rental agreements before signing and even then, you may still be responsible because landlords here have a lot of power, especially if you live inside a gated neighborhood. The landlord can instruct the security team to not allow moving trucks in or out for you, if they are unhappy with you or they believe they haven’t received enough money from you if you’re trying to break your contract).

Also in our old house, we had a little used toilet on our third floor that leaked twice. Additionally, our bathroom on the first floor had a leaking sink problem, all of which we paid for ourselves. Luckily, the plumber we used in Celaya only charged us 100 pesos per visit (plus whatever parts were needed) and he was a great plumber.

In Queretaro, we moved into a much newer house. It was only around 2 years old and it had barely been lived in before we moved in. We have had continual problems with all three of our toilets, plus my sink. All of which we have to pay for to get fixed, even though it seems the problems are because the toilets are the cheapest toilets you can buy. There’s another current problem regarding some leak in the wall that the landlord will have to address because our plumber didn’t want to try to find it and then have the landlord say that he caused the issue. In Queretaro, I’ve paid around 700-800 pesos each time the plumber has to come. That include the visit and the parts. Ishmael is also a handyman, so he’s come to do all kinds of things to help us, including installing our washer and dryer and dishwasher.

When we visited La Paz, we stayed in our friend’s house. The guest shower didn’t work very well and eventually quit while we are there. He mentioned that shower had been a problem since he moved in.

Plumbing problems in hotels

Oddly enough, we’ve encountered some odd plumbing things while visiting resorts, too. We love visiting Cozumel, but on both our visits to the same hotel but in different rooms, the base of the toilet leaked. The first room, they tried to fix it, but I never bothered to report it during our second trip. We were farther from the front desk and it left my mind as soon as we stepped out of the room. Plus, I could just put down a towel so the floor wouldn’t get wet and slippery. Please know, this was clean water. If it hadn’t been, I’d have insisted on it being fixed or being moved to a different room.

Electrical woes

This was a bigger issue in our house in Celaya, as well. The wiring in our main first floor room would practically eat light bulbs. They would randomly burn out, only to come back on a few days or weeks later. If a bulb had been recently replaced, we just left it for awhile to see if that would happen. Luckily, we didn’t have issues anywhere else in the house.

In our newer built house in Queretaro, we have several light switches that don’t always turn on the lights. I don’t know why, but it’s the biggest problem in two of the bathrooms. Luckily, we don’t have light bulbs burn out as quickly as they did in Celaya, so thank goodness for small things!

Static electricity

I’m writing this originally in March, 2021, and it must be an even drier year than normal. I can’t touch anything in the house without getting zapped. Once, I was putting the key into the lock and I saw a zap of electricity go from the key to the keyhole with maybe a millimeter or two space between the two items. It was odd.

It’s an odd, several times daily occurrence that I don’t know how to get it to stop. It will probably ease up once the rainy season starts in late May or June. I hope.

It’s an odd thing that is particular to the dryer climates, but it’s been driving me nuts this year!

Sometimes, I hear flute music

This isn’t a bad thing, just something that made me wonder before I figured it out. This is something that started happening once we moved to Queretaro. A few times a week, I’d hear some music that sounded a little bit like a flute or pan flute drifting around. It’s distinctive and I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. I started wondering if it was a person selling tacos de canasta. These are small, steamed tacos, that are sold out of a basket.

One day, I happened to be in the pool when I heard it. The pool is near the front gate and I could tell I was closer to the music than before. I got out of the pool and looked out the front gate. There was a man on a bicycle playing the music. I finally figured out that he is a knife sharpening guy and the music is how he announced his presence to anyone inside our neighborhood that he was there to provide his service.

Water woes in Queretaro

Ever since we moved to Queretaro, we’ve had issues with our water running out. There is a tank on the roof that holds 1,100 liters. As the water is used, more water is supposed to drip into it to keep it filled up. Sometimes, the water stops coming.

Why?

The first week we moved in, the landlord didn’t pay the water bill (that was for water usage before we moved in). That was easily fixed, thankfully. After that, we’ve had problems with the water 4 or 5 times due to leaks and power failures in different areas near us. Half of the times, we’ve needed to call in a water truck to have water delivered. This can be anywhere from 150 pesos on up. If you are calling for a single house in a neighborhood, you may be charged an unbelievable $1000 pesos (or more). When there isn’t water in the house, there isn’t much choice, though. Luckily, I haven’t had to pay that much. In fact, our water bills for the month are under $1000 pesos.

Most recently, our neighborhood ran out of water due to vandalism and cables being stolen from a spot near to our neighborhood. Since everyone in the neighborhood needs water, the price to fill my water tank was 150 pesos. It took 3-4 days for the service to be fully restored and I had to have water delivered daily, even though we tried really hard to conserve it as much as possible.

In Celaya, we never, ever ran out of water. We were lucky to have a cistern under the driveway, as well as the tank on the roof. Even though we don’t drink our tap water, we still need water in the house to wash dishes, flush toilets, and shower.

If you don’t pay a bill, your service will be cut quickly

We had our electricity cut off the same day we left for our summer trip to Ohio in 2018. We never received a bill due to the power company changing their system and not sending them.  We also couldn’t access it online. To recap, we didn’t receive the bill at the fault of the electric company and the power was cut. Since I’m in Mexico with my husband’s company, I asked our concierge-of-sorts if she could check out this situation. We still had power when we left, but it turned out that it was cut later that day. Our concierge did ask the following day at CFE and she couldn’t find any answers. Even if she had been able to pay it right then, the damage would’ve been done since our power had been cut unbeknownst to us.

My poor husband returned home to a dark house and a smelly refrigerator. We lost quite a lot of value in food items and learned the lesson that we have to be far more proactive regarding bills. You can’t count on them arriving in a timely manner. I’m sure I annoy the office lady in my neighborhood because I ask for the water bill so often. Running out of water or having your electricity cut even temporarily is inconvenient, to say the least. But once that pay-by date passes, you can be separated from service immediately. Even if you pay right after it being cut, you may not get it restored immediately, either. Internet is the only service that I’ve had restored quickly once the bill was paid.

You gotta watch the meat (and the milk)

Never in my life have I bought so much bad meat as in the past 4 years of living in Mexico and actually quite a lot of that has been in the past year in Queretaro. I don’t know the reasons that we’ve ended up with so much rotten meat, just that we have. I don’t know if it’s a refrigeration during transport issue or something else. Even if we have gone to cook it same day or frozen it immediately, it has not been fit for consumption.

Many friends of ours had this problem with fresh milk and switched to the shelf stable kind (that needs to be refrigerated after opening). After I bought the first bad half gallon, I switched, too. It’s actually really handy to keep extra milk in the pantry.

In Queretaro, we typically purchase our meat from HEB because we haven’t had any issues with it to date. However, Fresko has the best produce in our opinion, so we go to multiple stores for our groceries. This isn’t different for me than in the US because I have often had to go to different stores for my preferred products due to my celiac disease.

In Celaya, I often ordered directly from a butcher.

Central Mexico is very dusty

This isn’t a bad thing, it’s just a thing that is helpful to know. Right away, a fellow expat told me to never leave my windows open while I’m on vacation. Not because of rain, but because of the dust. She did it once and came back to a house thickly coated in dust. It’s a dry climate and sometimes windy. Dust does have a way of settling over everything.

Now, that being said, I’ve occasionally left certain windows cracked open. Due to their design, I wasn’t worried about dust or rain heavily blowing in. Usually, on our week or longer trips, we do close up the windows and curtains.

What’s funny is that I typically leave the windows and patio doors open all day, every day when we are home to allow the breeze to keep us cool. We haven’t yet lived in a house with air conditioning nor have we had it installed in the bedrooms. It may be worth considering for those planning to move to central Mexico who suffer from allergies. I do have allergies, but they are mild enough that I just deal with them for now.

Mosquitoes (and other bugs)

In Celaya, we lived in an area with so many mosquitoes. Even though the neighborhood sprayed for mosquitoes at least 3 times a week, they were still a problem. Our dogs were living at the time and we ended up with many mosquitoes getting into the house because of opening and closing the door so often. I don’t know the type of mosquitoes that live in this area, but I have an annoying reaction to them. They itch so intensely that I nearly scratch my skin off. Even anti-itch cream isn’t enough to help. I usually use two applications of straight vinegar to help soothe the itch. Also, they usually bite you 4-5 times. It isn’t uncommon for my entire arm to start itching and turn really red. They will also bite fingers and hands. Thankfully, my home in Queretaro isn’t near any water, so we do have less mosquitoes.

Some of the expats had scorpions inside their houses and had to have them fumigated. Additionally, we have had cockroaches get into our kitchen and try to take up residence. My cleaning lady brought some powder and spread it in all of the crevices of the kitchen. She left it there for two weeks while we carefully maneuvered around it. Amazingly, it killed off the roaches. Currently, we are fighting with the ants in our yard and getting into our house. Outside, I believe we have leaf cutter ants. They have decimated some of our plants and trees. After having stuff put down to kill the ants, the plants do make a quick comeback. We have a smaller type of ant sneaking into the house every so often.

Bugs are just part of life here, though. Sometimes, you’ll get lucky and not have too many issues. We didn’t have ants in our first house, but have them in the second. We had issues with mosquitoes and flies getting into our house in Celaya, the latter because there was also a farm nearby. In our house in Queretaro, there haven’t been any flies. In Celaya, we never saw any black widows near the house. However, we’ve seen three or four immediately outside of our house in Queretaro.

I’m scared of snakes and scary spiders (like black widows and brown recluse – the daddy long legs and wolf spiders either get removed or we peacefully coexist). Even though they are something to think about, because you’ll actually see some of the bad creepy crawlies, it isn’t something to be overly worried about if you are also scared of them. Really, the mosquitoes are more prevalent and they are easily remedied with a fly swatter or bug spray.

If you’re curious, I’ve only seen small, harmless snakes here and maybe 3 scorpions. The latter were in the country. It thankfully hasn’t been a big issue.

Overall, I love living in Mexico

Truly, I do love living in Mexico. Those quirky things about living in Mexico listed do drive me nuts at times, though none are so terrible to make me dislike living here. I love it and hope you love it, too!

Are there things you dislike about living in Mexico? What’s your favorite thing about living in Mexico? The best feedback comes from readers. Please leave a comment with your thoughts. Thank you!

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