A. A residential home.

Q. Where is it supposed to be on the show?

A. In Dexter's neighborhood in Miami.

Q. When did we see it on the show?

A. In Episode 3 (of Season 4), "Blinded By The Light".

Dexter's life is being complicated by a neighborhood vandal who is terrorizing his block with childish stunts. The neighbors have gotten together to form Neighborhood Watch patrols, and are pressuring Dexter to get involved.

When Dexter finds his own front gate has been tagged by the vandal, and the Neighborhood Watch meetings invading his home, he decides to put an end to the problem.

His first suspect is Jesse Brightman, a neighborhood teen sporting graffiti-decorated shoes. Dexter lifts his fingerprints from a Coke can, then matches them to fingerprints on the spray paint can left next to Dexter's tagged front gate.

But his efforts to scare Jesse backfire when the Neighborhood Watch patrol mistakes him for the vandal.

With the vandal's pranks getting progressively more dangerous, Dexter breaks into the Brightman house at night, planning to scare Jesse - whom he assumes is out vandalizing at the moment.

But he's surprised to find Jesse asleep. Just then, Jesse's father, Andy Brightman, comes home carrying a wrench, and Dexter realizes that it's the father who is the vandal.

Pulling his mask back on, Dexter confronts Andy in his garage, threatening "If you so much as touch another window, I'll come back here and leave with your head in a bag... I've already got the bag."

Surprisingly, Andy isn't intimidated quite so easily, and fights back, ranting about how his life is in shambles, and how he resents the success of his neighbors.

But Dexter quickly subdues him, and eventually forces him (by threatening his son) to agree to stop his vandalism.

Andy turns out to be a rather pathetic character, whose wife has died, who has lost his job, and who is on the verge of losing his house as well.

But Dexter has little sympathy for him, remarking, as he walks away, that it's his world, that people like him made it that way, and that at least Andy had a chance to belong.

Q. What is it actually in real life?

A. A residential home - just nowhere near Miami.

Q. Where can I find it in real life?

A. The producers pulled the old switcheroo on us for this location.

The house is supposed to be in Dexter's neighborhood. So one would naturally start looking in the Bluff Park section of Long Beach, where Dexter's & Rita's new house is located.

But instead they opted for this home, which is located at 4105 Locust Avenue, in Long Beach, CA, in the Bixby/Los Cerritos area - at least six miles northwest of Bluff Park.

It's on the west side of Locust, about seven homes south of San Antonio Drive (just south of the Country Club neighborhood where "American Pie" was filmed).

Not coincidentally, I'm sure, it's just two houses south of Trinity's home.


And it's the same neighborhood where they filmed most of the Neighborhood Watch chase scene.
And the earlier pool party scenes were filmed nearby.

Here is an aerial photo. And here is a map link.




I shot the photo below in late November 2009.  (They just recently added the new gate out front.)



[ Warning: This is a private home.  Do not trespass on their property, knock on their door,
or do anything else that might disturb the residents. ]




The "Dexter" [producers are familiar with this part of Long Beach.  In previous seasons, they've used nearby homes for Miguel Prado's house, Maria LaGuerta's house, a "for sale" house visited by Rita, and the grieving fiance's house.



So, as of Season 4, there are now three different neighborhoods in Long Beach which could qualify for the title of "Dexter's Neighborhood":

• There's the original Dexter's Neighborhood, Los Altos, where they filmed most of the first season's residential homes (including Rita's house, young Dexter's house, and Angel's home).
  
  
• There's Bluff Park, where you'll find Dexter & Rita's new house as well as Elliott's house.
  
  
  
• And now there's this Bixby/Los Cerritos neighborhood, with Trinity's house, the vandal's house, and the Neighborhood Watch scenes.
  

Q. How the heck did you figure out where it was?

A.  A Dexter fan who lives in the area, Susan Loomis, alerted me early on that they had been filming on Locust Avenue. So, when this house popped up on the show, and the street number (4105) was visible above the garage door, I naturally checked to see if it was 4105 Locust. And it was.  (Thanks, Susan!)