Manasquan, NJ – Winter Rental Nomads
On my 1.5 hour long Max commute from Portland to Beaverton this morning, I thought back to the towns in New Jersey I’ve lived in. Not sure where that really came from, but Jersey has been in my head a lot these days. I was born in New Brunswick, grew up in zig-zig patterns from North Jersey to the shore, and eventually went to high school in a small town called Manasquan.
Manasquan is a crap shore town surrounded by other crap shore towns, and boasts a population of about 6,500. Coastal towns in New Jersey are referred to as “Down The Shore,” and typically only reach their population peak during the warmer months. This creates interesting housing situations, as tourists often come down the shore during the summer and snatch up all of the vacant apartments only to return to Staten Island when the winds begin to chill. In many cases, seasonal tourists pay exhorbitant amounts of money to live down the shore in the summer, leaving these dwellings available for locals only during the winter. This mess of towns was loaded with rich folks… and then a few scattered people here and there who liked living close to rich people even though they were dead broke. Like my mom.
My mother, having recently been diagnosed with full blown AIDS, was taking it easy and couldn’t work so much. She was zonked out on AIDS meds and was currently into doing things like Living In The Only Apartment Complex In Town, even if it meant all of her neighbors outside of the complex were rich assholes. She found a boyfriend who removed asbestos for a living and we all bounced around from apartment to apartment together.
Thus, the phemonenon of The Winter Rental Nomad.
The Winter Rental Nomad describes the category of folks who live season-to-season; adopting temporary homes for several months at a time during the colder months. These temporary dwellings include large multi-bedroom houses, apartments of varying sizes, bungalows, and even motel rooms. Rates for these homes tend to run a lot cheaper than anywhere more permanent, which creates a constant flux of people constantly moving. An apartment that rents for $1000 in the summer rents for $550 during the winter months, which makes it attractive and easy to fall into the lifestyle.
What do the locals do in the summer months? Being that there were so few locals who weren’t loaded and living in their own private homes, there were just enough summer rentals owned by vacationing folks to go around. Granted, they weren’t at the satisfying prices of the winter rentals, but that just meant we had to work a little harder during tourist season. Considering the large amount of shore dwellers that work in the healthcare industry (nurses, CNAs, hospital staff, etc) and how busy the healthcare industry is during a tourist season, there is always plenty of overtime.
My favorite winter rental was on Brielle Rd. A bottom floor carpeted apartment with three bedrooms, a huge kitchen and living room, and central heat and air! For $500!
While I only lived in that apartment for a few months, I had a huge number of amazing life discoveries there: I discovered gigantic crushes on girls, The Smiths, the hardcore scene, Riot Grrrl, and the fact that my mother was getting really sick. I also discovered that my upstairs neighbor was kind of famous….
