Mobile Home Park Owners Clearly Don’t Fancy Cats

A no-cats crackdown at the Vista Del Monte Mobilehome Park has turned into an emotional tussle between the park’s owners and feline-owning tenants, who have been given seven days to find another home for their pets or face eviction.

Mary Baum, a 14-year tenant of the Jeffries Avenue park, received her notice Saturday. “I was scared to death when I read that,” said Baum, a 74-year-old widow, who has obtained a note from her doctor stating that the cat is important to her emotional and mental health.

“She keeps me up,” Baum said of Susie, a black-and-white, declawed longhair. “It’s just like another person in the house.”

One of the park owners admits he has tolerated cats before--even though their presence violates park rules--as long as the animals caused no trouble. But Charles Ettensperger, 64, says he and his wife have now been forced to take action against cats after complaints from other tenants about wandering pets.

“A number of people have snuck cats in at times, but it has been under control,” said Dorothy Ettensperger, 59. “In the last couple of months, it’s gotten out of hand.”

She said at least two families have gotten rid of their cats--one was put to sleep--since an initial 30-day warning was distributed in February. She added that she has published reminders of the no-pet rule in the park’s monthly newsletter over the last two years.

Her husband said he has been willing to look the other way in the past, but not now. “They urinate on people’s doormats and tear up their furniture.” One woman recently complained of more than 15 cats--none of them hers--on her front porch, he said.

But cat fanciers blame the trouble on strays and on a minority of residents who let their pets run loose. Three tenants have retained an attorney to stave off eviction.

One of them, Diana Hill, 54, said she is determined not to part with Pandora, a slinky, 14-year-old black cat with an expressive tail.

“She’s been my companion for the past 12 1/2 years, and she’s seen me through some very rough times,” said Hill, who is single. “She’s who I come home to.”

Her attorney, Margaret Bonertz, is contending that “the law views a rule that has not been enforced for over 10 years as null and void.”

Beach Kokanour, 85, has already given her two cats, This and That, to a friend. “We just felt really heartbroken,” she said. “People have had pets in this park ever since they came and they never bothered anyone. I think it stinks.”

Hope Phillips, 55, said she and her husband have decided to sell their mobile home and move, rather than part with their pet of six years, Tanya.

Dorothy Ettensperger maintains that she had no idea there were so many illicit cats--about 10--on the grounds, although she had suspicions. “Once in a while you see a cat in the window and you wonder, but you can’t prove anything,” she said. Previously, when she has confronted suspected cat-owners, they have said the animals were just visiting.

Ettensperger said she and her husband are distributing the warnings as a last resort.

“It’s one of those things we didn’t want to do. We’re caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.”