Paradise for the Poor
Rebecca Snowalter runs her own business, the Top to Bottom Cleaning Crew. The crew consists of, well, her. Primarily — and nearly exclusively — the clientele are VRBO and Airbnb leasers, houses all over the island rented out by the day or week to tourists who vacation here. Used to be winters were slow but not sinc Covid kept folks in lockdown. Now everyone wants to travel. Rentl prices soared but Rebecca’s cleaning fees really didn’t, just more profit for the landlords.
Rebecca rents an old double wide down at the Mabane Mobile Village. Rumor has it lately a Canadian consortium may buy the Village lock stock and rain barrel, then jack up the rents. Way of the world, she figures, but she’s not happy about it. These days she’s not happy about much of anything.
“I’ve got to hire help,” she told me the other night at the Pilot House Lounge. “I can’t live on the few clients I have.”
Trying to detour her pessimism, I said, “Maybe the new owner’ll turn the Village into vacation rentals, more work for Top to Bottom.” Rebecca looked at me like I’d just spoken in glossolalia, babbling gibberish about the Promised Land. Or the sweet hereafter, the after being her death.
“Sure,” she said, “and maybe I’ll make a fortune in the next year, buy a house or maybe two to live in, sell the business and retire in Costa Rica, live happily ever after.”
She was imagining what it would be like to find affordable rents here on the island, the same island the millionaires have found the last decade or two. The only cheap rents were being converted to VRBO’s, vacation rentals five times what the owners charge for yearly. “I’ll be living in my car before long,” she moaned.
What can you say? Hope you got a big car? You won’t have to cook for yourself? Think of it as road trip vacation every day? Instead, I just said, “Next drink’s on me, Rebecca.”
The South End — might not be a paradise for the poor anymore.
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Tags: Cost of Living Anxieties, High Housing Costs High Rents, Living in Your Car