Tenant Questions

Just recently purchased a small mobile home park in upstate NY, and all the trailer are tenant owned. I have one tenant who owns 2 trailers next to each other, one he uses as storage and one he resides in.I have owned the park for 4 months and he has been late with the rent every month so far. He has so much junk between and around the the trailers we have asked him many times to clean it up and has not. I gave him until September 1 to remove all his junk unless I was coming with a dumpster. I have the property owner next door complaining , the Insurance company complaining (liability reasons) and the state inspector giving me violations. What is a good solution?

What do your rules and regs say about keeping lots clean?

In Indiana I would non renew his month to month lease.
I’m not sure how eviction works in New York, but evict him. Take pictures of his mess and the inspection violations and bring them to court if you have to.

Once you file for eviction, the tenant might get his butt in gear and you could cancel the eviction later if you wanted.

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Thats what we were thinking

We just took the park over, our rules state that they are responsible to keep it neat so we do not get any violations, and if any violations are incurred it would be remedied at the expense of the owner.

Simple solution: Evict him.

Always evict trouble. Give them a warning, which you’ve done. If they don’t respond, evict.

I know. You want to be nice. You want to give a chance. Etc. BUT. It won’t change. It won’t. You hope it will. But it won’t.

Most of us learn the hard way. We give many, many chances. We don’t want to evict someone from their home, and we can’t afford the cost of eviction (because we don’t realize how much the bad one is really costing us if we don’t evict). But, they don’t change. In the meantime, all the homes around them are unhappy, and don’t understand why the landlord doesn’t do something. Some of them leave, so you lose the good ones and keep the one bad one. And you can only get bad ones to move in, because of the existing bad one. It’s a bad cycle. Eventually you learn. Get rid of the bad ones right away, up front. One warning, no change, evict. That’s the most fair thing to do for everyone, including the huge majority of his neighbors who ARE being good neighbors and keeping their home and homesite looking nice.

I am in NY State. NY has very harsh laws for landlords. Latest is we can’t evict anyone for anything. But that being said. If your rules cover it, serve notice if they don’t clean up their lot as per the rules, you will, and you will charge them. If the rules don’t cover that then write new rules which get hand delivered and in two month they take effect. Add the amount to their rent and you can evict them once NY State lifts the eviction moratorium. Be sure to photo and document the violation and service. I suggest you joint the New York Housing Association and ask for help. Bob the director is knowledgeable and helpful.

My rules state that any violations i incur due to the actions of a tenant will be billed to them directly and they get thirty days to correct it. Theres an old saying about crapping where you live… while this continues, you are crapping where you live. You are getting on the wrong side of inspectors, and also on the wrong side of tenants. You can’t expect others to keep things up, when this jerk does not. You also cannot expect people to look at your park and want to live there… its shooting yourself in the foot.