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McCullough and his wife moved into the home in 1994 with the help of Oakland's first-time homebuyers' program, which requires them to keep the house for 20 years.

Hope he gets time off for good behavior....

I grew up in and returned to the North-East after living on the edge of Berkeley and Oakland, on Claremont Ave. and College Ave., for two years, while attending two years of college there on an exchange program.

Compared to what we have to deal with here, in the North-East, there is absolutely no excuse for anyone in the Oakland area to resort to illegal means. They have four seasons of moderate temperature, all of it beautiful. Every day is a perfect 50 degrees to 75 degrees. There aren't even any in bothersome insects to deal with.

You can live very comfortably with a minimal investment in housing, no heating, no insulation, there isn't even that much rain. The public transportation is excellent and every street has beautiful sidewalks, on both sides of the road. The only hardship are the people which you must deal with. Because the environment is so easy, I believe that it allows the insane to prosper. But what about Canada then?

In the end, I left because I missed the seasons. I lost track of time without them, there was no urgency.