Some Prefer Noisy Freeway Rather Than Nosy Neighbor

Some people say that there can be advantages to living next to a freeway.

“I don’t like the noise, but at night, the lights are pretty,” said Maxine Schmidl, 34, whose condominium in Orange overlooks the interchange of the Santa Ana, Garden Grove and Orange freeways. “It kind of looks like a river flowing,” she said.

Bob Zeller on Vermont Street in Westminster said he has had “five or six” cars roll down the embankment behind his bank fence along the San Diego Freeway. But he’s content with the freeway as neighbor.

“I’d rather have a freeway than a bunch of barking dogs or a two-story house,” he said.

Maria Gutierrez, who lives on Eastside Avenue in Santa Ana, doesn’t mind her next-door neighbor, the Santa Ana Freeway.

“I’m glad to live here. I don’t have no neighbors,” she said. “I like it without people to tell me what I can do.”

And even those who don’t like it admit things could be worse.

“It bothers me,” said Orange resident Kathy Hawk, whose condominium has the same view of the freeways as Schmidl’s, “but it must beat living next to an airport.”