Susanna J. Sturgis   Martha's Vineyard writer and editor
writer editor born-again horse girl

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The House Across the Street

June 03, 2006

The house across the street from me is dark. Before I left for WisCon it was bustling -- several vehicles in the short, steep driveway, laundry hanging on the railings, lights on at night. June 1 is a common deadline for tenants to vacate their winter rentals, but the same group was there through last summer so I'm not sure what the story is.

Digression for those who've never lived backstage at a seasonal resort: Before I moved to Martha's Vineyard, I read about how many renters on Cape Cod had to leave their homes in May or June so that landlords could jack up the rents for the short-term summer people. I was appalled. After I'd lived here about two years, it was business as usual. Another one of those frog-in-slowly-heating-water scenarios. Some landlords rent to summer workers. The properties may be less than high end, but they still don't come cheap, so the summer workers squeeze in as tight as possible. This is the only way they can make rent at summer wages and still save a bit for college.

I started hearing about this house right after I moved into this neighborhood nearly four years ago. No one liked it. It's a boxy three stories tall with balconies on the second and third floors. It sits darkly on a rise, surrounded by trees. From first sight I've thought of it as "the treehouse." It was, I gather, built or bought for summer housing. With its balconies and outside staircases, it looks a bit like a mini-motel. For at least a year after I moved into my apartment, maybe closer to two, the house was vacant. Once I sat on my front steps watching two men walk around the house. They asked me about the house and the neighborhood. I knew nothing about the house beyond my impression that it had been used for summer housing, but I told them what I knew about the neighborhood: that it's well established, unpretentious, friendly, and mostly year-round. I surmised that the men were prospective buyers and also that they were a couple. Did they buy the house? Don't know. Can't recall ever seeing anyone over there who looked like an owner.

The people who moved out while I was away were Brazilian. Brazilians are the island's current underclass. They fill the jobs that others won't, and because these jobs don't pay all that well, rents are very high, and they're usually sending money home to relatives in Brazil, they make rent the way the college students do, by cramming as many as they can into one house. The tenants across the street included men, women, and a couple of kids. They came and went, I came and went; I said hi, they waved, or vice versa. Not a whole lot of talking (I don't speak Portuguese) but March before last two of the guys helped push-start my truck when the emergency brake got stuck.

Now they're gone, and according to a neighbor another group, which may involve some of the same people, has moved in next door to her. That house is a pre-fab, built only last year on a hilly lot that didn't seem buildable till they knocked the trees down. Like the treehouse it's a three-story box, but it's only got a porch, no balconies. Still, it seems to include two distinct units, an apartment on the ground floor and a two-story residence above. Night before last was a royal ruckus. My neighbor's daughter complained about the noise around 10 or 10:30, but by 2 it was going full blast again, and a woman was out screaming in the yard, though she didn't seem to be in danger. This didn't sit well with the neighbors, two of whom work construction and have to get up around 5 a.m. and two more of whom leave for work at regular office hours.

This has been happening for years in neighborhoods all over the island. For the last 10 years at least, it's been pinned on "the Brazilians" but for sure it's been going on a lot longer. As far as I can tell, the Brazilian part is incidental: one key is "cheap labor," only now it's not just white college students and they don't leave at the end of August. Another key is "high rents."

The third key is "scapegoat." On Martha's Vineyard, as elsewhere, we like easy targets, the ones who can't talk back maybe because they're not here long enough (like moped riders) or because they don't speak English (like the Brazilians). What we don't want to contemplate -- who does, if they have a choice? -- is that Pogo was right: the enemy is us, and we collectively are fouling our own nest. Real estate agents, developers, the whole grotesquely named "hospitality industry," everyone who enables and in any way benefits from tourism and the second-home market. Which, if you've lived here a few years and have to work for a living, probably includes you. It definitely includes me. Most of us are part of the problem, and the real problem is that this is how we keep food on the table and a roof over our heads.

 

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