Do not hold park residents to a higher standard than their subdivision neighbors
Most US mobile home park owners have a list of rules attached to their lease that is longer than the lease itself. While it’s always a good idea to cover your bases and address all potential behavioral issues, it’s another thing to expect people to follow more rules than the local prison.
More importantly, what does the park owner earn?
My theory is that you shouldn’t expect mobile home park residents to be held to a higher standard than people living in brick houses in the nearest subdivision. It would make sense that someone living in a mobile home would be less likely to obey the rules than these occupants of stick-built houses, so why are your park rules ten times as long?
Take a walk through the subdivisions closest to your park. Do you see? I bet you see the same things you see in your park. Tall grass, junk in yards, non-functioning vehicles and the like. They’re just better at hiding it because you can’t see it in their backyards as easily, and the non-running vehicle is blocky behind the house. Still, the overall quality of the rape looks a lot like its park.
My point is that humans, regardless of demographics, violate certain rules as a regular part of their existence. It may not be aesthetically or morally correct, but trying to combat it is like trying to stop the Mississippi River, basically impossible.
Does that mean you should reduce the number of rules attached to your lease? No, you want to have all contingencies covered. However, you may want to rethink what you enforce and to what extent you enforce it. To get our bearings on this concept, let’s look at a typical city government and what it asks of its residents and how they enforce compliance.
- Tall Grass: In most cities, having grass that is a certain height, typically 8″ is a code violation. As a result, violators will typically receive a warning and a deadline to meet, and if not completed, a fine and/or someone from the city will cut it off and charge you for it. They don’t threaten to evict you and they don’t set the rule at a ridiculously low level like 4″.
- Breakdown Vehicles: If you don’t get rid of them, after getting a warning, you’ll get a hefty fine. If you don’t pay the fine, you will be arrested. Maybe we can substitute “arrested” for “evicted” in the park rules theology.
- Litter in Yards – Again, if you don’t clean up your yard, you will be fined and made to pay. However, you must have a lot of garbage for a code officer to write it.
- Aesthetic issues: Paint your house for example. This is barely covered in most city ordinances, because they only deal with the worst offenders that harm the community. They don’t get involved in the little things, and maybe you shouldn’t either.
- Pretty much everything else: loose dogs, loud music, etc. This is a police matter. It should be for his followers too. You should not get involved in being the executor. That’s what the police are for.
I think this is really all you need to follow to enforce the rules. Some owners have built a career on rules. They spend every hour of the day harassing tenants and sending threatening letters, but does it make them any money?
Some might argue that it does so in the way of making the park more desirable for new park tenants, buyers, or lenders. I agree, but you can always “dress up” the park right before you put it on the market or refinance it. As for new tenants coming in, let’s be serious, how many new homes are selling and moving to parks in your area? It’s what I thought.
As for resident retention, you’re just as likely to scare off existing tenants with lots of rules and strict enforcement. If they wanted a beautiful, hassle-free environment, they shouldn’t have moved to a mobile home park in the first place. Also, I have found that such picky renters never stay as they are always unhappy and end up moving out no matter what you do.
In conclusion, try to take a softer and more practical view of the rules and their application. Your life will improve, and so will your tenants. You can put those “rule enforcer” hours to more productive uses, like making money.
