On Monday, a peculiar listing for a South Lake Tahoe duplex went viral on Zillow.
At first, 3695 Primrose Road looks like a regular old house in Tahoe. It’s a 1962 duplex, asking for $650,000. But the listing is anything but normal.
As you click through the photos, you might notice piles of laundry heaped on the couch, and an unmade bed. Or the groceries left on the kitchen table. And in the bathroom, that thin roll of toilet paper on the counter seems like a weird touch to try to sell a place, right?
I surf Zillow all the time as a form of escapism. I’ll land in a random city and imagine what it might be like to live there. I’ve browsed countless houses on Zillow. This listing in South Lake Tahoe is, um, different.
“With a little love, this duplex has great income property potential,” the listing advertises.
Then come the mannequins.
About halfway through the photos, the scene shifts dramatically. It’s as if someone cleaned the places spotless for a group of — mannequins?! In every room, mannequins seem to be casually hanging out, dolled up in glamorous dresses with rouge on their cheeks. Is this a cocktail party for all the plastic people? The mannequins are lounging on furniture, standing next to a house plant, chatting in the corner. One is wearing a tiara, and they remind me of going to the mall or a department store in 2005. Mannequins disturbed me back then — and they still do now.
The final shot is like a mannequin family portrait. All of the plastic people are posed around a medium-sized Virgin Mary. And there’s a plastic baby in a toy walker.
“Property to be sold as is,” the listing says. Whether the mannequins can stay is TBD.
When I first saw the Zillow listing, I was really, really confused, and also intrigued, and OK, a little bit disturbed by the mannequins. Piles of clothes on the bed and mannequins bedazzled in silk and sequins? I thought this had to be some sort of internet ruse.
Turns out, these photos are an intimate, unfiltered glimpse into the lives of real people. The listing real estate agent, Jesse Yohnka, says he didn’t touch a thing before shooting the pictures. (Normally, he does move things around, but in the pandemic, he said he didn’t want to touch anything.)
As of Monday afternoon, the Zillow listing for 3695 Primrose Road had 1.2 million views, the top listing of the day for the website. All those viewers came for the weirdness, but instead what they got was a candid look at the life of renters in Lake Tahoe’s housing crisis.
Condos and duplexes like the one in this Zillow ad are some of the last places in Tahoe to rent long-term, and on wages paid in tourism service jobs. Old apartments that look like the two in the duplex exist throughout the Lake Tahoe Basin. They have worn out carpet, outdated appliances, and kitchen cabinets built decades ago.
Back in the 1960s and ’70s, when there were few regulatory barriers, development was booming in Lake Tahoe. That changed in 1987, when a new regional plan to protect the environment was adopted. New development was capped, and the pace to build new housing slowed down dramatically. Very few new housing developments have been built since 1990. In fact, in South Lake Tahoe, just 3% of rental units were built in the last decade, according to a 2019 study by the Tahoe Prosperity Center. Meanwhile, 75% of rentals are more than 40 years old.
The problem is, just because a place is old doesn’t mean it’s cheap, said Tahoe Prosperity Center CEO Heidi Hill Drum. Especially this year. Since the pandemic, Tahoe’s real estate market has soared. While property values in South Lake Tahoe have increased more than 46% compared to last year, the number of available long-term rentals on the market has virtually disappeared.
“Lots of purchases [are] happening quickly and most [are] going for asking price or right around that,” Hill Drum told SFGATE. “Many purchases are by those who are looking for a second home, can either work remotely or want to be here part-time and they have another home somewhere else.”
Hill Drum’s new neighbors, for example, live part-time in the Bay Area. And someone just like them could buy the duplex at 3695 Primrose. The current property owner lives in Cambria. Whoever buys it next, chances are they’ll tear it down and rebuild, or maybe they’ll still rent to locals. But according to Hill Drum, Tahoe’s aging condos and apartments are being rented at higher and higher prices, with little to no improvements.
Because the post has gone viral, Yohnka is getting a lot of attention on the property. He’s expecting multiple offers. He said the upstairs tenant is trying to get a loan so they could put their own offer on the duplex. They’ll have some competition, though.
“The Bay Area, they have a lot of money,” Yohnka said. “Of course locals want to keep it local, but you also gotta eat. There is resentment, though. It’s hard.”
Here’s another weird twist in Tahoe’s online housing drama: A couple days before the mannequins were posted on Zillow, another strange listing for housing appeared on the internet, this time on Craigslist.
The headline for the Craigslist ad boasted a “beautiful Tahoe cabin for rent long term” and advertised rent at $3,000 a month. I clicked the link. The tone immediately changed in the first line, with an all-caps statement brandishing Bay Area newcomers and transplants, at large. It was written anonymously by someone who identified as the “dirtbag locals who cant [sic] find a place to live.”
“GO BACK TO THE BAY YOU KOOKS!!!” the Craigslist ad stated, with caps and precisely three exclamation points. “Take your tesla, your pooodle, and your entitlement and HIT THE ROAD JACK!”
It turned out to be a wild prank. Craigslist has taken down the post, but you can still find it on the internet archives. The post goes on to read with the pent-up frustration of a belligerent local who, it seems, has had enough of Tahoe’s drama and politics. Clearly, they blame transplants.
Tension between locals and tourists is a mainstay in Tahoe. It will always exist. Sometimes, the frustration strikes both ways. In 2005, a letter to the editor published in the Tahoe World, a now-defunct weekly newspaper, called full-time Tahoe residents “low life locals.” A local coffee shop retorted by adopting the slogan and printing thousands of stickers, as reported in 2012 in indie Tahoe news outlet, Moonshine Ink. Locals stamped them on car bumpers and coolers with pride.
From my vantage on social media, Tahoe locals responded to this Craigslist prank with similar glee. Even though it reeked with entitlement, anger and localism, it struck a chord among people who have worked hard to make Tahoe home, but can’t find a place to actually live. The Craigslist ad was shared alongside anecdotes of housing woes. When Craigslist took the post down, screenshots kept it alive.
“The Craigslist ad made me laugh,” said Sky Rondenet, who posted the link to Facebook. “I thought it was hysterical and pretty spot on. Finding housing in Tahoe is impossible. There is no inventory and what little you can find if you’re lucky is way overpriced, making it impossible for locals to live.”
But back to the mannequins. Will they be able to stay and continue the party in Tahoe?
It remains to be seen.
