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\u2019s cleaning fees really didn\u2019t, just more profit for the landlords.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s not happy about it. These days she\u2019s not happy about much of anything.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got to hire help,\u201d she told me the other night at the Pilot House Lounge. \u201cI can\u2019t live on the few clients I have.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trying to detour her pessimism, I said, \u201cMaybe the new owner\u2019ll turn the Village into vacation rentals, more work for Top to Bottom.\u201d Rebecca looked at me like I\u2019d just spoken in glossolalia, babbling gibberish about the Promised Land. Or the sweet hereafter, the after being her death.<\/p>\n
\u201cSure,\u201d she said, \u201cand maybe I\u2019ll 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u2019s, vacation rentals five times what the owners charge for yearly. \u201cI\u2019ll be living in my car before long,\u201d she moaned. <\/p>\n
What can you say? Hope you got a big car? You won\u2019t have to cook for yourself? Think of it as road trip vacation every day? Instead, I just said, \u201cNext drink\u2019s on me, Rebecca.\u201d<\/p>\n
The South End — might not be a paradise for the poor anymore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[7181,7182,7183],"class_list":["post-18832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rantings-and-ravings","tag-cost-of-living-anxieties","tag-high-housing-costs-high-rents","tag-living-in-your-car"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18832"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18833,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18832\/revisions\/18833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}