Sewage Leaks, Dirty Swimming Pool and Other Complaints Claimed : Mobile Home Park Residents Stage Rent Strike

Virginia Hoover calls it “the black lagoon.”

It’s the swimming pool at La Corona Mobile Home Park, just outside Corona in unincorporated Riverside County, where her family has lived for about three years.

And it’s one of the reasons she has joined at least two dozen of her neighbors in a rent strike against the park’s owners, Gerald E. Inman of Yorba Linda and his family.

The park has been plagued with health and safety problems, and the Inmans have not kept their promises to install recreational facilities and improve conditions, according to the members of La Corona Mobile Home Owners Assn.

A letter to Inman’s family from James R. Rose of Corona, the group’s attorney, lists 11 alleged health code violations at the park and six alleged violations of a 1983 Municipal Court judgment against the owners.

Scheduled in Court

Gerald Inman and his wife, Rita, are scheduled to appear in Corona Municipal Court again on Wednesday, this time to answer a criminal complaint, filed last month by the Riverside County district attorney’s office, that they have allowed discharge of sewage and other waste in the park in violation of the state health code.

“I’ve never done anything wrong to them,” Gerald Inman said of his tenants, who pay between $225 and $300 per month, plus utilities, to set their mobile homes in La Corona. The enclave of four rows of trailers lies between a railroad line, a manufacturing plant and a flood-control channel, in an industrial area east of Corona.

Inman added that the rent strike and the complaints have been instigated by residents who have only recently moved into the 51-space park.

“One or two of them talked them into it,” he said. “There are some ornery boys in here.”

There are 39 occupied mobile homes in the park, and 34 of their owners have joined the residents’ association, each paying $15 monthly dues, said Jill Clark, the group’s treasurer. The dues are used to pay attorneys’ fees and to buy office supplies, she said.

Only one member has paid this month’s rent to Inman, Clark said, while 25 have paid their May rent into a trust account set up by the association. The remaining eight have promised they also will pay their rent into the trust, she said.

By withholding the rent, park resident Hoover said, residents hope to pressure the owners into making some changes. “(We have) a slumlord situation. The people in this park are fed up with the conditions.”

In an interview this week, Inman countered that residents could see the park’s condition before they moved in, so they knew what they were getting. “And they move in for some reason,” he said.

According to attorney Rose, however, residents were not told that the septic system would regularly back up into their homes and yards and were not told that the streets would flood every time it rained.

He added that residents moved in because they were assured, sometimes in their rental agreements, that the owners would build a playground, provide a recreation center, pave their driveways and raise a wall around the park.

Promises Allegedly Not Kept

Yet none of these promises have been kept, said Michael Thompson, president of the residents’ association.

A recent walk through the park revealed that the play area is nothing more than an overgrown, vacant lot, so children play in the streets. The recreation room is a dark, empty cinder-block building with a concrete slab floor.

Inman said vandals wrecked the play area, adding that he plans to add a basketball court and new swings “pretty quick” at a cost of about $500. In the recreation room, he said, “they (residents) can have anything they want, as long as they take care of it.”

He suggested that the tenants could end their dispute by buying the park from him and taking care of it themselves, an option the tenants will consider, according to Rose.

But for now, as it has been for the 2 1/2 years he has lived there, “the place is a dump,” Thompson said. “It’s embarrassing.”

Thompson displayed a warning sign that county health officials had posted on the pool’s gate, he said, but he later found laying face-down in the street. The pool, Hoover said, had not been cleaned at all during winter.

A March 25 letter from Rose to Inman’s family said, in part, “the swimming pool has not been opened or maintained in months; the stench emanating from it is a nuisance to those living around it; mosquitoes are breeding in the area.”

But Inman brushed aside those charges. As he cleaned the pool this week, he said, “It ain’t dirty.” Pulling his arm from the murky green water, Inman added, “it’s just full of algae.”

Inman’s appearance to clean the pool, Rose said, was typical of the owners’ reaction to county inspections and residents’ protests over the years. “They go out there and cosmetically take care of the problem,” he said.

“They pump out the (septic) tanks, clean out the pool,” but as soon as the protest fades and the inspectors leave, the neglect recurs, Rose said.

Records show seven verified complaints of sewage on the ground in 1985 and six in 1984, wrote Damian Meins, a Riverside County health inspector, in investigation notes submitted last month with the misdemeanor complaint in Corona Municipal Court.

“Records show similar patterns for the prior years also,” Meins said, describing the March 12 flood that prompted the criminal charge as “only the latest in a long history of waste-water violations.”

In five years, Inman has never sought a permit to repair the park’s overburdened septic system, county records show.

Inman told one resident, complaining that a pool of sewage had accumulated beside his mobile home, “to dig a trench,” Rose said, showing photographs that the residents had taken of sewage flooding their showers, bathrooms and yards.

Wants Permanent Cleanup

“I want to get the park cleaned up permanently,” Rose said, “. . . so that these people can have a good place to live, without putting up with the stench of raw sewage.”

Sewage backs up, Inman said, because residents clog their own lines to the septic system.

“Nine times out of 10,” Dan Davis, the park’s maintenance man, said, “it’s the tenants’ fault. But they don’t want to pay for it. They want the park to pay for it.”

The Inmans’ attorney, Terry R. Dowdall of Santa Ana, responded to the residents’ complaints on April 29 with a letter stating that their “demands and their accusations are without merit and are precipitated by a rental increase for the year 1986, which has been rescinded.”

But the letter did offer the residents some concessions, including a one-year rent freeze and street drainage improvements, if the residents agreed to several conditions, including paying past-due rents, agreeing not to vandalize the property, and paying for plumbers’ work when septic blockages are found to have been in their own pipes.

Residents dismissed the offer, however, citing such provisions as one requiring them to pay for any insurance premium increases that installing a sandbox, swing set and basketball hoop in the play area might bring.

Some of the other complaints voiced by the residents--and the owners’ responses--include:

- Excessive rents, which are comparable to those at newer, better equipped and better maintained parks in the Riverside area. “Who knows what is too high?” Inman said. “We accept kids . . . dogs . . . cats.”

- Rent increases that violate the 1983 judgment, which limited increases to actual cost increases for water, sewer and trash services. Residents failed to exercise their right to review rent changes under county law, attorney Dowdall countered, writing: “My client’s conduct has been extremely reasonable, surpassing the norm of mobile home park owners.”

- Nearly three dozen utility poles that are too short and too unstable to be safe. Inman said he will replace the poles, but later in the same interview said, “I don’t have the money to pay for them.”

- Improper drainage from washing machines, causing flooding outside the laundry building and closure of the facilities. A broken line has been fixed, Inman said, and new washers and dryers installed. The facility is now open 12 hours daily, Dowdall wrote.

- Unkept promises to install billiard tables, a perimeter wall, a sauna and landscaping. Inman denies making such promises.

- Harassment and eviction of tenants who organize to challenge their landlords. “I never have evicted anyone,” Inman said. Davis, the maintenance man, added: “They think I’m harassing them because I say, ‘Why don’t you clean up your yard?’ ”

- Failure to provide written rental agreements and park rules, and changing those rules without proper notification and consent. The owners will provide these, their attorney said.

- Inaccessibility of common facilities, such as the recreation room. Dowdall’s letter offers to keep the facilities open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., after some closures for repairs and painting.

- Entering mobile homes without written consent. The owners have heard no specific complaints, their attorney wrote, and agree that they will not enter homes illegally.

- Imposing illegal fees for rent collection and for pets. The owners will agree to refund the pet deposit, but Dowdall’s letter does not address the rent-collection fee issue.

- Improper billing for utilities, without posting the rates charged. The rates are posted, Dowdall wrote. “I understand that this is no longer an issue.” Residents, however, say they are monitoring their meter readings to see that they are not overbilled.