Mobile Home residents are being forced to move

Can you imagine moving in 30 days? That’s what residents of Country Acres North and South Parks in Parkland, WI, are currently facing. Residents have until August 1st, 2022, to vacate the premises.

Douglas County officials say the license for the parks was not renewed as of August 26th, 2021, and the County took possession of the trailer parks through the tax deed process in June of 2022.

Supervisor for District 15, Susan Hendrickson, who covers mostly the Town of Parkland in Douglas County, shared with WDIO how everything unfolded for the mobile home parks.

“Most of the problems started happening after the owner of the trailer parks passed away and left it to his wife. She was not managing the properties correctly. After that garbage started to pile up, and people were not paying their bills to the sanitary district. That is her responsibility to make sure those bills were paid, and they were not getting paid. The fire department was going in and finding problems there, and they were not getting fixed. And then things started to just deteriorate. It was like she did not care or could not keep it up. So to me, it is basically a problem with poor management.

Information released by Douglas County states the move comes after more than a year of working to assist the owner in cleaning up the property.

“I have heard the estimated cost to clean up will be about $80,000,” says Hendrickson.

The safety of the residents has been a top concern for the County’s Departments.

According to residents living in Country Acres North, like Amber Rose, who has lived there for two years, the environment has not always been this way.

“There have not had garbage cans or anything. We used to have garbage cans down there, and when they were there, it was not that bad, but when they got removed, obviously no one had anywhere to throw the trash.”

Hendrickson mentioned, “that there were people in the trailer parks she knows that are and have paid their bills, their septic, and utilities. But the overwhelming number of folks were not doing what they needed to do because she was not.” For those that were doing everything right, this move was hard.

“It sucks because I own my trailer. So, there are probably just going to tear it down, which sucks. I do not have anywhere to move that. 30 days was long enough for us to this camper and to get the kids out and get a storage shed and do all that, but no longer enough to find somewhere to make the trailer.”

Douglas County stated in a press release that all residents were given information regarding resources for relocation.

26 trailers remain on the properties, 11 in North Park and 15 in South Park. There are four occupied trailers in North Park.