or, what the Arlington County, Virginia realtors don’t want you to know.

If you and your spouse get a couple of those high-paying bureaucratic jobs with our United States government, you will need to live in or near the nation’s capital. If you have youngsters, “in” is not such an attractive option. After years of prohibiting private ownership of personal firearms, Washington DC has become a shooting gallery and home invasion paradise. The criminals know their victims will be defenseless, so there is no deterrent to crime.

So your attention may turn next to Arlington. On the map, after all, it is the missing corner of the original square capital city planned by our nation’s founding fathers. It’s the part of the square to the left of the Potomac River, which runs through the middle on the view shown here.

How much closer can you get? A decent single family home will set you back a million dollars. Or, you can have a nice condo for half a million. Mind you, we are not talking anything luxurious here. It is the land underneath the dwelling that runs up the price, not the amenities. But you will have those two marvelous salaries, courtesy of the generous taxpayers.

Your real estate taxes will be a shock. About 22% of Arlington’s school population is not English-speaking, and getting these kids up to speed costs a bundle. But you can make up the difference by going down to the friendly illegal alien pick-up center (paid for by the county) and getting really cheap household help. You will need to be able to speak Spanish. But you might as well take advantage of this labor bonanza, because you are already paying to educate their mostly illegitimate anchor children (the ones in the school system who don’t speak English).

But, you may ask, if Arlington is so expensive, where do they live? They take over rental apartment complexes that have become virtual third world slums. They manage to pay the rent by moving several families into each apartment — one family lives in the bedroom, one family lives in the dining area, one family lives in the living room, and they all share the kitchen. (Arlington County does absolutely nothing to enforce the single family per unit housing code.)

Improving even on this scheme, the illegals can also double the number of families per apartment by sleeping in shifts in the available bedspace. Half of the tenants of the apartments get night jobs on the cleaning crews for Arlington’s high rise office buildings, so they can use the beds during the daytime, when the other half of the apartment population is out working as gardeners, maids, restaurant dishwashers, and nannies, and in the back rooms of dry cleaners and other small businesses.

And what enterprises are housed in this commercial real estate in which hordes of illegal aliens have unfettered access as maintenance personnel during the night hours? Several military branches, especially Navy, and, oh yes, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. And all of the “beltway bandit” contractors who do all of the defense research and development, procurement and planning. For example, the Joint Cruise Missile Project Office was headquartered here, as was the Phase One Engineering Team for Star Wars.

However, you may want to consider private school for your own children. In this cross-cultural paradise of pricey real estate and high end job opportunities, there is a disturbing underbelly. The Arlington Connection, a local paper, has a weekly column where they share a few juicy tidbits from the police blotter. Each week, it is just a representative tip of the iceberg, not the whole report. Following are four items from just one week, out of the many items on the blotter for that week (August 8 - 14):

1. MAN ARRESTED FOR INDECENT LIBERTIES WITH A MINOR Arlington County Police Department’s Special Victim’s unit arrested Jamal Anthony Wheeler and charged him with one count of indecent liberties with a minor. Wheeler approached a 13-year-old boy who was waiting at a bus stop in the 4000 block of Lee Highway. Wheeler struck a conversation with the boy and led him to a secluded area….
2. PROVIDING FALSE REGISTRATION INFORMATION At approximately 7:55PM officers responded to a park for a report of a suspicious person. They found a man sitting on a picnic table watching children on a playground. It was determined that the man was a registered sex offender…
3. CUSTODIAN PLEADS GUILTY Darrell Beckham, a former custodian at Randolph Elementary School, has plead guilty to sexually assaulting an 11-year-old girl earlier this year…
4. SCHOOL EMPLOYEE ARRESTED A temporary employee at Arlington Traditional Elementary School was arrested last week for propositioning a 13-year-old boy…

Just one week. As I said, you may want to send your kids to private school. And drop them off on your way to work. Do not let them take the bus!