Complaints flood in about mobile home parks

NORWALK — A story Thursday in the Norwalk Reflector about conditions in local mobile home parks has sparked a spate of complaints from additional park residents and community members. City officials disclosed that numerous complaints have recently been lodged against Midtown Manor and Key Estates in Norwalk, regarding extremely high and sewer water bills, speeding cars, burned-out lamp post bulbs, inaccessible sidewalks and dead trees that pose the risk of falling on residents' homes. Residents also complained about water shutoffs to their residences that occurred due to non-payment on the part of the company that owns the parks. Norwalk General Services director Aaron Osborne said that the parks each have a master water meter and that the company is billed from their readings. The company then sells sewer services and water to residents, using their own meters, he said. Residents from both parks, and Firelands Manor in Wakeman, reached out to the Reflector with lists of additional complaints about I and R properties, which owns all three. The company owns a total of 14 mobile home parks in Ohio, New York and Iowa, according to the company's website. Multiple calls to the company seeking comment on Friday were not answered. Company representatives, when speaking to the Reflector earlier this week, declined comment. Rebecca Adams, a resident at Firelands Manor, said her water bill has doubled in the last two years. She added that the company was forced by firefighters from the Wakeman Fire District to shut down heating gas service to the park in the middle of winter for two to three days, because maintenance personnel from I and R continued to apply putty to a gas pipe that continued to leak. "I don't want my kids to go past the mailboxes," she said. Adams' list of complaints includes speeding cars, broken mailboxes, standing water in yards and sewage backups. She said the company requires background check information of people moving into the park, but arguments, gunfire and the presence of illegal drugs persist. She added that 12 cars were recently had gasoline siphoned by thieves. She added that abandoned mobile homes are left unsecured in place and are subject to vandalism and rodent and insect infestation. Adams said she regularly pays for an extermination service for her home, from her own funds, but others might not be able to afford to do the same. "If you didn't have rats, you have them now," she said. Adams added that roads in Firelands Manor are not regularly maintained in the winter months and road salt is never applied, forcing her to shovel her driveway and part of the street. "They don't even plow," she said. "It's been a nightmare." Micheal Childs rents a half mobile home in a duplex style arrangement in Key Estates with her boyfriend, Leslie Williamson. She said her rental contract called for appliances to be provided by the company, but when the couple moved in, there was no refrigerator. She said they were told to obtain one from another unit, but the one they found was filled with cockroaches. Childs said she now pays for an exterminating company and a refrigerator from a rent-to-own business. Childs added that the unit's roof is falling in and continues to leak, even after she reported it to I and R. Childs said maintenance personnel tore out the unit's ceilings, replaced insulation and did not repair the roof itself. The roof continues to leak into the walls and ceiling, causing mold growth, she said. The resident added that though the couple is not required to pay for water, their kitchen sink leaks and she cannot shut off the water in the shower. "There's homeless people living in the empty trailers out here and they do nothing about it," Childs said. "Everybody is tired of it." Childs said the other half of her duplex mobile home is unlivable, with the awning falling off, and that the stench from a neighboring, abandoned mobile home permeates the couple's home. "It smells like dead bodies," she said. Added Williamson: "I don't know what to do. It's just horrible, man." "The place is really horrible," said Gary Ward, whose sister, Carol Ward, lives at Key Estates. "The park itself has been let to go to hell. It makes me feel uncomfortable." Carol, who has lived at Key Estates for the past 26 years, said the mobile home park was much nicer when she moved there. She blamed I and R for its decline. "This was a very decent trailer park," she said, "but it's gone downhill with management." Carol also cited steep water and sewer charges and increasing numbers of abandoned mobile homes. She added that her calls also regularly go unanswered and vermin are living in empty mobile homes on the property. "There are a few of us who do keep our lots up because we have to live down here," she said, "but the place has just gone to hell, basically."