For the last couple weekends I have been showing homes in one of Baltimore City's wonderful neighborhoods - Hampden.  Hampden is a great neighborhood with a great commercial district, lots of neat shops.  I read somewhere that Hampden won't allow any chains to locate stores in their area.  Now, they do have a 7-11, Royal Farms, Dunkin Donuts, McDonalds and Superfresh but not in the main shopping area.  The shops that are on "The Avenue" are local home grown businesses with lots of variety.

I have noticed though, a lot of homes that are for sale have dirt floors in the basement, or partial dirt floors in the basement. 

What are the long term ramifications of this?  I'm looking for some advice from my fellow active rainers. 

As a child I grew up in a house with a dirt floor in the basement and we had lots of mice.  I grew up in northern Canada and it was too cold for termites so we didn't have those.  But, here in Baltimore we have a lot of termites and I wonder if having a dirt floor is just asking for termites to come and eat away at your new home.  Or what about rats?  That's another thing we have a lot of here too. 

Other than that Hampden has some wonderful real estate at affordable prices to offer.  The choice is going to be difficult for my buyers.