At their worst, however, mobile home parks can become a nightmare for seniors living on a fixed income, or those who have sunk a lot of their savings into getting a home in a park. You can have all sorts of problems with management or owners of parks, or even natural disasters or other disasters that essentially leave you homeless and with all of your precious life belongings and even pets gone. Some examples of this are the mobile home parks in Louisiana that were hit by Hurricane Katrina, and the Oakridge Mobile Home Park near Sylmar, CA.
As I read with an inward cringe at some of the mobile home horror stories in Southern California, I wonder if there are actually many that are truly decent while remaining affordable for the lower income folks. Apparently, there are more with problems than there are good mobile home parks in Southern California, and this may well be a problem in other states as well.
I am going to try to present as well as I am able with the research I am able to find, some assistance to you if you are looking to buy a mobile home in Southern California. Hopefully this can help avoid some serious problems for you in the future.
Let's look at the worst of the worst of mobile home parks. These are all owned by one allegedly mobile home park ownership groups, Kaplan-Tatum. They own some approximately 20 mobile home parks in Southern California, and they have beeen listed on every bad boy mobile home owner site and there are numerous articles about some of the illegal things they have done. Here is a very good resource to read about them and see some photos of the real thing from some of the actual parks owned. http://badlease.blogspot.com/2009/10/tatum-kaplan-gangexposed.html. And actually, they are written up if you research the name on www.google.com for all the lawsuits, etc. they have had, so I am not telling you anything that is not already all over the place.
Probably the worst park in Southern California I read about is Swan Lake Mobile Home Park in Mira Loma. It is overrun with gangs, crime and destruction, to say nothing of a bunch of other nasty things like huge raccoons running rampant throughout the park. And to add to the nightmare for the mobile home owners, people are paying huge space rent (up close to $1,000).
We could say it is just the owners at fault, but how did a park come to be like this without anyone doing anything? The thing is, I have seen it here in my own park over the many years. Once again, this is not intended to defame anyone; I am sharing my own experience in hopes of helping you to be careful when making a decision to move into a mobile home.
When I bought my first mobile home in the park, I knew basically nothing about mobile home ownership, like most seniors buying their first mobile home. I did not know my rights and was just so happy to be in a little community in a decent neighborhood, but I soon realized that all was not what it appeared to be. We were told that we had to use a certain group to do any maintenance that needed to be done, so of course we used that group. But it became quickly apparent that those people were totally dishonest and lazy to boot. They would do a job halfway and then expect to be paid the entire amount. I had numerous first-hand experiences with this and others who used them reported the same problems. I knew nothing about leveling a mobile home, so that first year, I had to keep calling the people to level my home, each time costing me $80! One day I came home from work to find my door was standing wide open and my pets had gotten out because the mobile home was not level and it had JUST been leveled. This time, however, I got really mad (fear will sometimes do that), and I went to a neighbor's house and asked him what was needed to level a mobile home. He told me, and loaned me the tool to take care of it. That very afternoon, I crawled under the home myself and leveled it, and it was actually so loose on all the pylons, I am quite surprised that the home didn't fall off of them. I tightened every single one as tight as I could. I never had another problem. In fact, I leveled several of my neighbor's homes, and they too never had another problem.
Despite that proactive action though, there was still so much I needed to learn. I was a consultant at the time and so much of my business began to take me further and further away from home until I was getting so tired on the road, I realized I had to stop driving. I found a place to rent near my clients and even though it wasn't my own home like the mobile home had been, it was essential for me. So I put my home up for sale and listed it in an open listing with a mobile home sales person that the management told me we had to use to sell our homes. Right then and there I should have questioned that one, but again, I had a lot yet to learn, and this would be a very hard lesson learned. So even though I had it listed, I found a buyer myself who was just a year short of being senior, and who had good references. I trustingly sent her over to talk to the management to get approval to buy the home. Soon I got a call from management that I could not sell to her as she was not a senior. What I didn't know then was that there was nothing at all saying the park was a senior park and I had never signed anything to that affect. I had noticed that there were people living in the park who weren't seniors, but again, management had a quick answer for that - the 80/20% rule, and there were already 20% people who were not seniors. And then management added (to make sure I would not ask any more questions I guess), and of course the person could not get financing since the mobile home was only 10' wide, and the financing would only cover 12' wide. Of course the mobile home sales company that I had bought from did private financing so they were able to sell to me.
Now this manager had told me and some other folks in the park that the manager got $1,000 every time a mobile home was sold through that mobile home sales company. In fact, the manager had been quite proud of this fact. But again, did I know that this just might be a conflict of interest?
To make a long story not quite so long, the gist of all this is that I lost my buyer and couldn't find another one, and meanwhile the mobile home sales person had done absolutely nothing to find a buyer for me, and they had actually other homes for sale in the park as well (this will be important to remember since mine was the smallest and oldest of the ones that were available at the time). Eventually it became too much to take care of and I had to let it go. And funny thing, I learned later after I moved back in once again, that the home sold immediately after I turned it back to the bank (which later went under and had been investigated for a lot of hanky panky). And the buyer? Hmmm, just a little more hanky and probably a lot of panky too. Basically, I had to start my life over from scratch and that was not at all easy, especially as a senior, and this is something you want to avoid at any cost for you or your loved ones.
So mobile homes ARE a good deal if you can get into a really good park where the owners AND managers have a good reputation. But whatever you do, be sure you learn 1) what the natural dangers are in the area, i.e. is this on the San Andreas Fault, or in a highly wooded area, or in an area where there has ever been flooding, etc. 2) Who are the owners of the park and check out their reputation. 3) make sure that the park isn't going to be sold or in process of being sold. 4) Join the mobile home owners organizations listed in my resource list under Housing. 5) Be sure you read very carefully the Mobile Home Residency Laws which change almost yearly. 6) Be sure you understand the kinds of things you need to check in a mobile home you are buying. Look carefully at the ceiling and make sure there are no signs of leaks. Turn on the A/C if there is one, and also make sure the wall furnace or other heating system is working properly. Make sure you check the water pressure (which hopefully is turned on).
Talk to some of the neighbors to ask them how long they have lived there and if there have been any problems. You can sometimes read about such problems on www.google.com if you search on problems for that park - for example, Swan Lake Mobile Home Park is written about all over the place, but then it would be pretty obvious if you just drove by there and saw what was going on. Check the number of vacancies. A high vacancy rate does not sit well. And check to find out how often the rent has been increased and how much too. The management is going to question you; you have the right and it is your responsibility to question management too. ALL management is going to give you their best foot forward when you are interviewing them, but you might need to check up on their background too and see if there have been any problems with them.
You might think that you can move in if a park is going to be sold because you can get the home cheap. But what you don't know is that some owners might have paid $200,000 for their mobile home, only to be offered $80,000 during the forced sales. Oh yes, it has happened, and if you read enough mobile home owners organization web sites, sooner or later you will realize that this is a very real thing, even though it also is not ethical for sure, to say the least.
And when you are in the park, you cannot just sit back and forget to pay attention. You need to be involved with any owner's association that might be within the park, and also to stay informed on what is happening. And if things aren't right, as I have done and am continuing to do, you need to take a stand and make sure you are getting your rights and that anything that is promised or noted in the rules about maintenance, etc. is being done.
I am quoting the words below from a newsletter I subscribe to: Heron Dance, written by an artist whose watercolors I enjoy very much. While it is talking about art, I truly believe this is important for all of us in life. It is not easy to stand up and fight for our rights, especially when it involves our dwelling places and where we might be the only ones willing to take a stand.
"The final statement should be that in the realm of art the most important characteristic is courage. Courage to pursue what some voice inside of you, against the tidal wave of everything that's happening in the society, says go this way. Courage to pursue what you know you really have to pursue. That's what counts.
- Richard Foreman, filmmaker
"Courage counts. Courage gives life to art; courage inspires those who open themselves up to it.
"Part of the role of artists is to show us courage, give us courage."
"Part of the role of artists is to show us courage, give us courage."
I wish that life could be simple for all of us seniors and that we could just live our lives enjoying all those things people told us we would get to enjoy when we got older. But the truth is that some of us at least do have to stand and fight, not just for ourselves but for others as well. We might not be comfortable doing it and we might have to stand alone, and that is always scary. But it is a lot less scary somehow than it was when I was 20 years old and didn't know half the things I know now. People who have lived side by side with us for years will suddenly turn against us with those we might do battle with. The truth is that they are afraid, and they also somehow believe if they do nothing, or they somehow support the management, everything will stay the same and that everything will be alright. But that is not the case, and ultimately, way too late they realize the truth. Look at all the mobile home parks standing abandoned or in such terrible states that they SHOULD be abandoned.
I became a senior advocate because I had to stand up and fight for my rights, and I also had to help those who are even less able to stand up for themselves because of disabilities or illnesses. And suddenly this role has wrapped itself around me. What once was a story of victimization has blossomed into what I perceive to be a positive thing. What better thing to do something to help other seniors in every way I can. I hope this will be helpful for you and your loved ones. Feel free to write me any time if I can answer any questions for you and I am always willing to research until I DO find an answer.
