Re: Trashing Mobile Homes

[Nancy Davidson]

I live in Des Plaines, Illinois and was listening to WLS a radio station in Chicago and the two disc jockys were trashing mobile homes and the people who live in them. Of course, I e-mailed a comment to WLS right away, turned them off, and started listening to the music from Wicked.

What I want to know is why does the mobile/manufactured home industry advertise more in the media about their product? I am getting sick and tired of hearing people use the term "white trailer trash" when most people that live in a mobile home have a job and college like my husband and I.

Also, they are becoming more and more expensive so the people that will be able to afford them will have to be middle class. There are so many things that I could write about in living in a mobile home park; but, that will wait for another time.

Nancy Davidson
Des Plaines, Illinois

[rmurray]

Congradulations on doing the right thing...It take folks like you...manufactured home owners.. to help stop this abuse...

Keep it up..

[Justme]

Did anyone see the HGTV channel show on expensive "mobile homes" parks 2 or 3 weeks ago? It was the same thing. They were showing top of the line and renovated manufactured homes and calling them "mobile homes". It was disgusting. They insinuated that everyone lives in a trashed out mobile home except for a few rich eccentric people who have gone the extra mile to fix up their mobile homes and make them presentable. I'm not a fan of living in a manufactured home and I have problems with the park I'm in, but really - I know why we are here in the parks and why the manufactured homes exist - because we need affordable housing and no one else will give it to us. But they are all nicer than many low end stick built homes and, in my experience (yours may be different) better quality than all the condo's I've been in.

[Nancy Davidson]

Yes, I totally agree that living in a mobile home is a million times better than living in a condo since my husband and I owned three of them (hope I am not repeating myself). The only complaint I have about living in a single wide is I wish it were in better condition when we brought it (we brought it new; but, that is a long nasty story) and that it had dry wall instead of panneling - sp -.

But, it is housing that my husband and I can afford for right now (things are getting so expensive in this country) that when he retires in a couple of years - who knows where we will be living. Mobile home living isn't cheap.

Just one thing more about the Good Housekeeping Channel. On Thursday nights my husband and I sometimes watch house hunters - for the wealthy - not for middle-class persons like us. Unfortunately, I missed the program on mobile homes but a program like GH Channel that basically- sp- caters to the rich (what do you expect of them). Don't buy their magazine - it is lousy - or boycott the products that they advertise on their station (they also own the Food Channel).

Just one thing more. Why is the person who wrote the posting above me mad at the fact that a "manufactured home" is sometimes called a mobile home? They are usually built the same way; but, a manufactured home is bigger and costs more money than a mobile home. On the other hand, again, my husband and I live in a mobile home and are pretty happy with it. This list is for people that live in both mobile and manufactured homes - let's not damn either one.
Nancy Davidson
Des Plaines, Illinois

ps. I could write a book about condo living called "What Hell is Like". Not all condos are great or all subdivisions are wonderful either.

[Elaine Hostetter]

Hi!

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and am president of Sonoma County Mobilehome Owners Assoc., approximately 800 in membership at this time.

We have 128 parks in our county, with 8,323 spaces. About half of those would be considered "trailer parks" or RV parks, and the rest are mobilehome parks with anywhere from 50 to 300+ lots in them. There are "poor" people living in all our parks.....the median income in 2004 in this county is $76,400.00, and most of the parks are approaching 30 years of age so you can imagine that there aren't a whole lot of people in them whose incomes rise to that level.

We have a definite "we versus them" situation with the park owners, and must do constant battle in order to keep our rights, which are established in the CA Civil Code, Title 25. Some of the city fathers and powers-that-be seem to think that a manufactured home selling for $135,000.00 (way overpriced, BTW) in a housing market where the median price is just barely under $500,000.00, is a real bargain. They can't understand why our organizations push for rent control. We do have that in all our cities in this county except one, but that wasn't easy. The park owners are now writing leases of up to 47 pages, with all the benefits for themselves and none for the homeowners. My prediction is that within a very few years we will no longer have what is known as MH parks; instead, they'll be known as "resorts" and the elderly and poor will be living on the streets or in tents. I must say that there are people in some of these parks who do fit the description of "trailer trash", and unfortunately, that's what people tend to focus on. But in a few years, the MHs will actually be second homes for the wealthy and we won't have to worry about the TT label anymore.