Posted by Tony Colella on April 21, 2006 at 11:20:34:
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Tell Us Your Worst Mobile Home Story - Posted by Tony Colella
Posted by Tony Colella on April 20, 2006 at 22:44:19:
Karl (hopefully will expand upon this example story) for example (as I recall it now) purchased a trailer and while out of town had it move into his (very large) pet park.
He later gets a frantic call from his park manager about the EVACUATION that the bomb squad just forced!
One of my stories was a pending eviction I was working on when I got a call from a neighbor of the unit who wished to tell me to stop spending money on court filing fees. “The S.W.A.T. team had just eliminated my problem.” No they did not kill him (you watch too much tv), but they did gas him and storm the trailer!
Tell us your best (worst).
Tony
Pipe bomb trailer - Posted by Karl (Oh)
Posted by Karl (Oh) on April 25, 2006 at 20:33:04:
I don?t know if this is my worst story, but it was pretty bad.
A couple years ago I bought a nice trade-in home from a dealer on a handshake. When I arrived at the dealer?s lot with my mover to get the home, I was told that the home was just ?accidentally? sold to someone else. But they did have a decent old 12X60 on wheels that I could have for free, with their apologies. I was two hours from home with a mover, and didn?t want to go home empty handed, so I took the home. It was a nice old wood paneled Marlette, all it seemed to need was cleaned out with a shovel, and a new coat of exterior paint. The original aqua color was badly faded, and looked awful.
I took the home back to my pet park, and sneaked it way into the back so no one would notice it until it was skirted and repainted. Any home looks ugly on wheels, but this one looked horrendous. I didn?t want anyone to even notice it until we had it all set up. I was about to leave on vacation for a week, so I told my rehab guy to have it clean out and set up right away, and we would repaint it as soon as I got back.
A couple days later I?m in New York with my family, and I get a call from the PM. I?m told that the police, the fire department, the bomb squad, 100 spectators, several news stations, and a couple news helicopters have all descended on my little mobile home. Apparently, my rehab guy found what he thought was a homemade pipe bomb when he was cleaning out the trailer. He called the police, they called the fire department, and they called the bomb squad. Half of the park was evacuated for a couple hours while the bomb squad emptied the home onto the yard to make sure there weren?t anymore bombs. I understand that they got some good aerial footage of my ugly little trailer on three local news shows that night. After the evacuation was over, everyone in the park came over to check out the excitement. The owner of the park called the PM to ask who owned that ugly home sitting on wheels that he saw on the news.
I also got a call from the police asking me where that home came from. They were very interested in who was making pipe bombs. So I gave them the private cell phone number of the salesman who sold the other home out from under me.
As soon as I got home we setup the home, painted it white, and put on new white skirting. It ended up looking cute, but very few people saw the end result. Then we ran into some major electrical and plumbing problems. I eventually sold it for $4k cash to an retired woman. That was almost exactly what I had into the home. I took the money and ran.
Karl Kleiner
Re: Tell Us Your Worst Mobile Home Story - Posted by John Merchant
Posted by John Merchant on April 25, 2006 at 08:58:06:
In one of my first “Lonnie” buys, a partner and I paid way too much for a little old junker in a MHP, then spent way too much on cleanup & fixing.
When we then had trouble finding the excited (or really stupid) buyer, we sold to a real crumbum on Lonnie terms, for a nice anticipated profit.
That crumbum had been recommended by MHP Manager although I pulled the guy’s credit and it was the pits.
But based on the Mgr’s references, I took the guy in, and he proceeded to take us in…maybe made one or two payments nearly on time,before abandoning the MHP.
Well, the funny part came later (not funny at the time) when I discovered a good friend of mine, also doing Lonnie deals in the same MHP, had also accepted the crumbum, based on that Mgr’s recommendation, on a pretty nice, newer, DWMH in the same park.
And my friend had lured the crumbum into abandoning my little junker to go “buy” my friend’s nice new DW.
The crumbum of course proceeded to treat my friend in the same way, first junking then abandoning HIS DWMH.
My friend and I were comparing war stories a year or so later when we discovered we both had been taken by the same crumbum…kinda funny then, but it sure hadn’t been before.
Since that time I’ve had another MHP Mgr or two try to persuade me that some loser or other was really OK, but having been burned once I’m a lot more careful now in NOT heeding the Mgr’s recommendations.
Re: Tell Us Your Worst Mobile Home Story - Posted by EddieMi
Posted by EddieMi on April 21, 2006 at 20:39:14:
Had a maintenance guy say that taking care of cutting a large tree would be no problem for 150 bucks. He didn’t top it off and he didn’t angle the tree to fall correctly. It crashed into a trailers back bedroom and basically destroyed the entire unit- luckily nobody was hurt, but the tree was very big and was into the street and was a bigtime mess. The unit itself was self insured and not worth much, so i junked it and put in a better unit. Very bad phone call and definately my worst MH story soo far.
Re: Tell Us Your Worst Mobile Home Story - Posted by Ryan (NC)
Posted by Ryan (NC) on April 21, 2006 at 08:39:57:
Worst thing I’ve seen so far is a unit we inherited with one of our parks and can’t replace due to 2 units being on the septic tank. A couple was living in this little 12x60 along with 12 dogs, they had not had power in 8-9 months, had not paid rent in over a year, found it easier to allow the dogs to relive themselves inside than to open the back door for them, dead rats & mice in the fridge (had to use it for something I guess), water leak under the living room floor resulting in a 4x8 hole, multiple smaller holes from the dog urine, rat damage to the walls, and gave a new meaning to roach motel. To put it plainly anything I write here won’t do justice to how bad this trailer was!
The upside, we paid $200 to remove the tenant (making them shovel the dog [censored] out first) and $90 to have the carpet removed. Thanks to hanging out with the folks here we sealed the odors, killed the roaches, and will replace the subfloor, panel some damages, paint, and make this home a nice livable place for around 2k and will rent it with limited maintenance for about $95/week ($411 per month) for as long as we care too.
Best Wishes,
Ryan Needler (who just got censored for words that should not have been used in a public forum)
Re: Tell Us Your Worst Mobile Home Story - Posted by Mike/nc
Posted by Mike/nc on April 21, 2006 at 06:32:43:
Unfortunately my worst deal is still in progress. I’ve been trying to buy a land home from a guy for two months now. He lives in Ohio and I live in NC. He cant read and can barely write his name. (I think). And his mom had her jaw bones removed so you cant understand her on the phone. So just getting the correct address to send the contracts and such to was almost impossible. Then the first two set that was sent never arrived. Even though one was sent certified return receipt mail.So then I overnighted one. Didnt get it. Then when they did finally get one and sent in back with the supplied 'addressed and stamped envelope it never got back to the lawyers office. Im intouch with the lawyer or the sellers about three times a week trying to keep things moveing but it looks like I might have to make a trip to ohio. About 12 hours. Don’t want to let this fish off the line cause I’m getting it for 19.5K and it has a tax value of 54K and only needs carpet… Now I gota go see if Mr. Seller got the over night letter that was sent to him yesterday.
Re: Tell Us Your Worst Mobile Home Story - Posted by Todd (AZ)
Posted by Todd (AZ) on April 20, 2006 at 23:24:23:
Well, this one is more laughable and embarrasing than anything else but here goes: Ok, so I’ve been posting my English and Spanish versions of my “We buy mobile homes” flyer for several months now. A slow but consistent flow of calls have been coming in. For whatever reason I am looking at my spanish flyer at one of the words (ano)and thought "Hey, shouldn’t there be one of those squiggly lines over the letter “n”? Now mind you, this flyer was translated for me by a friend, a full blown Mexican, bilingual, and a teacher no less. Ok, the sentence reads: “No importa el ano o en que condicion esta” which was supposed to mean “It doesn’t matter what year or condition its in”. HOWEVER, without the squiggly line over the letter “n” the word supposedly means ANUS! So, it LOOKS LIKE I’ve been advertising “It’s not important what condition your ass is in, we’ll buy it”. GEEEEEEEZ!! Maybe that’s why these trailers are priced so high where I live! Todd (AZ)
Re: Tell Us Your Worst Mobile Home Story - Posted by JeffB (MI)
Posted by JeffB (MI) on April 20, 2006 at 23:19:21:
I can’t top either of those stories, but when I was getting started last year I got a lead on a mid 90’s doublewide that the lady just had to sell, she had drug addiction problems (no, really) and was willing to sell the home for just enough money to cover back lot rent ($1400) and some cash for her next fix. She had already been evicted from the park but was still squatting in the home. The next several days were spent tracking her from one drug house to another, then getting a hold of her parents, neighbors, and various other people who knew her all in an effort to give her some cash and take title of the home. Long story short, she was trying to scam me and there was in fact a mechanics lien on the home and they were awarded possession of the home, and she already knew this. Just a case of a very anxious and motivated “newbie” who just had to get his hands on a doublewide.
Nowadays, I don’t chase people, I wait till they are desperate enough to track me down and sell to me on terms that I’m happy with. I must say, I do miss the adventure…
Re: Pipe bomb trailer - Posted by Todd (AZ)
Posted by Todd (AZ) on April 25, 2006 at 21:23:07:
lol…Great story. And the fact it’s true makes it all the better. Todd (AZ)