It was Open House at Jay Critchley’s “septic summer rental,” so he lifted the manhole cover on the abandoned septic tank in his backyard and invited curious onlookers to come on in.
The underground, beehive-shaped structure was about 6 feet in diameter and 5 feet high, with a carpeted floor, a television set, a footstool that doubled as a table, a beanbag chair that doubled as a bed, and a festively lit shrine with suggested summer reading.
Starfish, seashells and assorted trinkets decorated the white-washed, cement-block walls. Burning incense almost masked the telltale aroma.
“Cozy,” was how Dan Rupe, a Provincetown painter, described the renovated septic tank, as he wriggled his shoulders through its small, circular, drop-down entrance.
Addressing the crowd of about 30 folks who gathered for the opening, Critchley explained that he set up the exhibit to make a point: As Provincetown lures a burgeoning number of second-home buyers, real estate values are rising beyond the means of most year-round residents. So working families, artists, writers and others with incomes on the low side are being forced out of town.
This trend threatens the community’s economic and cultural diversity, he said, and could cause it to become “a theme park for the rich.”
“These septic rentals could hopefully ease the demand for summer units and slow up the conversion of year-round housing,” joked Critchley, who estimated the cost of his renovation at $25.
“One small smell for man . . .” quipped a Wellfleet artist known only as Jorge, who said he could see untapped potential for this sort of thing.
Among those ogling the exhibit was Gwen Pelletier, executive director of the Lower Cape Cod Community Development Corporation, which serves Provincetown and seven other nearby communities–Brewster, Chatham, Harwich, Orleans, Eastham, Wellfleet, and Truro. She said she doubted that Critchley’s converted septic unit would meet building and health code requirements.
But she described it as “a wonderful commentary and a clever way of calling attention to a serious problem throughout the Cape, and especially in Provincetown.” She declined, however, to drop into the subterranean tank.
Later, at her North Eastham office, Pelletier provided some statistics to illustrate the local housing problem.
She said that in 1994, the Interfaith Council for the Homeless identified 214 families living in the eight, lower-Cape towns who had lost their homes or were at risk of losing them within a couple of weeks.
By 1996, the number of families in this predicament had risen to 335.
This year, Pelletier said, the problem appears to be even worse. In just the first four months of 1997, the council identified 169 more families that had lost or were about to lose their homes.
The chief factor causing these families to leave their residences was the rising cost of housing, she said.
Candace Rusk, a member of Provincetown’s Affordable Housing Working Group, an advisory committee to the Board of Selectmen, added that more than 1,000 homes have been converted to condominiums in roughly the last three years in Provincetown. One survey showed that, as of March 1997, only 569 rental units remained.
A Connecticut native who has lived in Provincetown for the last 22 years, Critchley, 50, described himself as an entrepreneur, massage therapist, gay activist and artist who specializes in performance art and art with political, environmental and often humorous messages.
One of his first projects, intended to show the transformative power of Provincetown, was a series of sand-encrusted cars and a sand-covered family made from live models cast in plastic bandages, coated with several layers of glue and sand. He displayed these on a local wharf in 1982, ’83 and ’84.
“People often say my work is cutesy, but I’m trying to make a point,” he said. “It has to do with interaction and ideas. I want people to laugh–but then hopefully they’ll get to the thinking level and say, `Hmmm, maybe it’s not so silly.’ “
