Would you live in a trailer park?

[Tradd]

I'm with Jennipurr. All the trailer parks I'm aware of attract the wrong element. No, thank you. Now, a manufactured home on a standard foundation/basement on my own property would be quite a different matter.

[early morning]

Not if there was any way to avoid it. First, of course, there is the wind. Not even tornadoes - wind and trailers are not a good combo. 2nd - lack of insulation, for temperature AND for noise. My parents had a double-wide on their own lot on a canal in FLA - Srs only - but I swear you could hear every footstep and every conversation in the trailers on either side, and they had about two car-widths between them. 3rd - they are mostly ugly, at least the newer ones. Some of the old models are rather cute. AND in a park where you rent the site but buy the trailer, you can have a lot of trouble selling if you want to move. Mobile homes aren't all that mobile. This is a situation my aunt is in right now. The park is lovely but the lot rents keep going up, as are utilities. She wants to move back up north to be with her kids and grandkids since my uncle died, but she can't afford to do so without selling the trailer. It's been for sale for 3 years, its in excellent condition and the price is pretty low, but she's had no real offers. There is too much competition in her area and no one wants a used trailer in her park. Around here (Ohio), when land values were going up many parks closed and non-renters had to move their trailers or abandon them. Many lawsuits, but the park owners were the only winners.

Could I live in one? Of course, if need be. Do I want to? Oh, no!

[frugalone]

We have a decent trailer park near our home. Never saw the cops being called there, never had any trouble with the residents. They even help take care of the street in front of our house.
That said, I don't know if we could live in a trailer. DH has far too much stuff. We looked at a few before moving into our house and they really seemed small. And that was when we were just living in an apartment! So I don't know...

[gimmethesimplelife]

But--water. Water for the plants, ummm. Where does that comes from?

Here's a Google map photo of where I lived in 'Cruces 33 years ago. Has not changed one bit including the vacant lots across the street. How cute is THIS???? It was a complex of duplexes built in the 1940's. Cute!

http://tinyurl.com/krl7nek

You have a good point about water IL. My first season working at the El Tovar on the South Rim, I went to look at some land outside Valle, Arizona, a little gas station/post office/restaurant/hotel/two gift shops and nothing much else tourist stop about 30 miles south of the Grand Canyon. And what stopped me from buying the land was just that - water. Either you go fetch it or have it delivered to you and it costs a small fortune to have it delivered. Very good soil, though, and a wonderful climate. About 6,000 feet so some snow but not the huge amounts Flagstaff at 7,000 ft gets and hot but not obnoxious summers in which many fruit trees will grow. But yeah, the water is a hassle. Rob

[Tussiemussies]

No, where we live there is such a stigma about living in a trailer park, or even having a trailer. My Grandparents lived in another state where you could put a trailer on a piece of land in the city and that is what they did, I didn't mind it at all and have many happy memories from there. In another area where it is accepted it is okay with me. We also have too many things that we use right now to fit into one!

[ToomuchStuff]

The more I have thought about this, I wonder why doesn't someone make an organization (or a offshoot), like Habitat for Humanity, that takes these smaller, older homes (think two bedroom on smaller lots) and convert an area to a senior living community?

Buying a trailer and renting a lot, seems to me to be like a phrase I read once, putting spinners (fancy spinning car wheels) on a trailer.

[Kestrel]

Right now: NO. I'm 70, DH is 69. We are both "young" for our age. We live in a subdivision on the outskirts of Boise Idaho, about 1400sqft, 3br 2b, and while it feels a bit too big for us at this time, it has a big garage and DH absolutely has to have that. He does a lot of woodworking and building and fixing things. He'd go crazy without his garage/shop. And he'd drive me crazy.

It seems to me there are a lot of mobile home parks in the general Boise area. Some are quite nice -- a friend lives in a very nice seniors-only park, very well kept (don't know the $$), but it seems so sterile. Three other friends and families live in a much-older park which is nice because it has lots and lots of trees and grass and the like, but the homes are old, some in bad repair. Last winter was very hard here, and a lot of people's pipes froze and one family was without water for months. Had to go down to other friends' to shower and haul water for the toilet. In the snow ... In trying to dig out the water lines they tore out a lot of insulation and they had to only live in one part of their mobile home, and I do believe they used space heaters for heat.

So ... I would rather not. I grew up "poor", as they say, and we did live in a trailer park at one time in the mid-1950s -- very small trailer, mother and daddy in the bedroom, such as it was, kitchen in the middle, and my sister and I slept on the couch. No bathroom, of course, so we had to go down to the bathhouse to use the facilities, and I truly don't remember how we washed clothes. ANYWAY ... DH came from a much more well-off family, and he's not inclined to consider a mobile home at all.

Time will tell. We'll cross that road when we come to it.

[Zoebird]

When looking at our return to the US, I considered a variety of housing options, including a trailer park. There are a few nice ones. We also looked at a camp site as an option. There are several campers on camp sites for sale for about $5-10K. Obviously, everything needs a bit of gussying up, but it's do-able. I mean, if you need ap lace to live, you need a place to live. "Elements" and stuff can be managed in their own way over time, and we don't have anything to steal, so. . . yeah.

Anyway, we ultimately were able to secure an affordable apartment, and it's a better fit for us, I would say.

[Heidi]

Yes, we plan to live in an adult mobile home park when we can no longer manage living in our cabin. We chose a very nice one in a small town below the snow level and plan to rent only. The park has been around for some time, mature trees are plentiful, shading the homes, since hot summers are the norm. It is kept up well, we know some of the residents, and they speak highly of the park and enjoy living there. All the homes are double wide and well maintained. Living there is part of our long term plan as we age.

[Spartana]

Here in SoCal we have some beautiful - and expensive - trailer parks that are very resort like. We also have some seriously dumpy ones and everything in between. So, depending on the park, it's condition, amenities and cost...yea I'd live it one BUT... one big problem is when the park's lease expires and then the park is sold to a developer who wants to build something on the land and the park's tenants must either sell their trailers or pay to have them relocated elsewhere. This has been happening here in droves and has caused a real crisis for lower income seniors who have lived at the park for 30 years or so and now must move to an expensive area.