It was only a matter of time before Y2K survivalists got themselves a real estate agent.
Spying a need among nervous millennium watchers, former computer programmer Olivia L'Heureux last month created Vamoose, the Internet's first Y2K relocation and safe-haven site.
"It's really cumbersome to go through real estate site after real estate site, hunting for suitable Y2K properties," said L'Heureux. The 41-year-old homemaker presently lives in Phoenix, Arizona, but has just bought a new home in the desert and plans to move soon.
Vamoose currently lists 20 properties for sale and for rent, and publishes ads for available land and planned Y2K communities. L'Heureux said her criteria is subjective, but says she looks for survivalist-friendly factors such as mild weather, gardening plots, and properties that are "far, but not too far" from a city.
Urban centers make Y2K survivalists like L'Heureux nervous. They believe that the millennium bug will knock out critical infrastructure such as power, transportation, and food distribution. This situation, they believe, will then lead to civil unrest.
If and when that scenario unfolds, the best place to be, the survivalists reckon, is the middle of nowhere -- such as the following Midwestern arrangement featured on Vamoose:
"The Deal: $500 a month until the electricity goes out or the banks close. Then 50 hours of bartered labor with your landlord plus babysitting while Y2K stops normal commerce in SW Missouri."
Other ads list getaways as far away as Australia, but most of them are in the United States. "Secluded Florida Mobile," "Remote Kansas Farm," and "Tennessee Safehaven" are just a few of the listings offering a Y2K escape.
While L'Heureux is apparently the first to hang a shingle on the Web as a Y2K real estate agent, a New Zealand company is already offering for lease four-week ultra-expensive luxurious "Safehaven" lodges.
L'Heureux says that so far, Vamoose has not sold any property, though many advertisers have been receiving inquiries. The site received several thousand page views in its first two weeks of operation.
One Y2K homesteader said that L'Heureux can expect her site's traffic to pick up in 1999.
"If I were living in a less desirable area and aware of the Y2K problem and its potential for disruption, I would be very interested in this type of service," said Kathleen Griffy, a member of the Y2K-homestead list. "It just seems that there is not much offered at this time."
L'Heureux first learned of the millennium bug when she was a COBOL programmer in the '70s and '80s. Like many coders of her time, she figured that the problem would be fixed eventually. But no one got around to it.
Years later, realizing that it would be impossible to fix all of the computers and computer chips in time for the millennium, she and her husband agreed in August to look for their own retreat. They recently purchased a home in the White Mountains of Arizona -- a high desert area about five hours northeast of Phoenix.
"To live in the country is a fantasy that a lot of people have, and Y2K was a good excuse to move on the idea," explained L'Heureux, who considers herself a "new survivalist."
Her new home is in a very small town with a strong sense of community and religious values. L'Heureux said that at one point she considered organizing within her own neighborhood in Phoenix, instead of heading for the hills, but rejected the plan.
"In my community, organizing [to raise awareness of Y2K] really wasn't an option. This was so outside the sphere of what my community is interested in."
"All of a sudden you start thinking about what skills you have," says L'Heureux. "I don't even cook. I buy frozen dinners at Trader Joe's. I'm so dependent on the conveniences of living in a city. You become very soft and lose those skills that people have had until recently."
Vamoose is part of the Y2K personal preparedness webring, a chain of 67 Web sites that provide advice and information on preparing for the millennium.
