What is your worst Trailer Park Experience?

[MrScorpio]

The trashier, the betterer

[AwakeAtLast]

1. Living in one right now

That is the worst. :(

[Maddy McCall]

2. Funniest website EVER on trailer parks... (Mississippi)

" It's a sad commentary on our culture, but the collections which take so many years to acquire can easily be stolen. Some mobile home dwellers have had to resort to fences to keep their treasures safe."

Great Mobile Homes of Mississippi

[Radical Activist]

3. I used to live in one for a summer during college

it wasn't bad. Our neighbors were a 19 and 17 year old couple. It was a good place overall and they were nice except for the day the girl called the police over and suggested they needed to patrol more because of all the black people walking around the neighborhood...ugh

[solinvictus]

4. Lived in one a couple of years...

It was pretty bad. Some people who lived in the cul-de-sac would have a Saturday night drunken domestic dispute in the middle of the road. Of course, the sheriff's office was called, etc. etc. and it wound up being like an episode of "Cops".
It's sad to see the growth of them as a phenomena as home ownership is out of reach for many workers in this country. As home prices skyrocket in many regions, wages are depressed and stagnant, so lower white/gray/blue collar professions can't earn enough to get into a home.

[politicat]

7. It's not just low wage white/blue/gray... it can be desperation, too.

See post below.

I'm a shrink, he's a senior systems developer.

Pcat

[solinvictus]

8. It's taking everyone down...

the economy, that is.

[ScreamingMeemie]

19. FWIW, my parents who combined make $150,000 a year, opted to purchase

one. They don't wish to live in an apartment or have the upkeep of a home...My grandmother has lived in one for 40 years. This thread is stereotypical. Many people choose mobile homes for other reasons.

[thatgemguy]

5. I'm a fan

of "Trailer Park Boys" Thursday nights at 9 PM on BBC America.

If you ain't watched it check it out.

AHHH.... what trailer park livin' is all about!

[politicat]

6. We live in one.

When Mr. P and his ex couldn't find an apartment that would let them keep their two cats and a dog (the one they had been in got condemned for a BS health code violation) they bought this place because they were desperate. Now we can't get out from under it so we'll live in it till we have it paid off, donate it to some local charity and be done with it. Never again will we own anything like this.

The worst part is the interest - we've got a great rate at ... 8.95 APR. I've got credit cards with a lower interest rate. The second worst part is the park management - the ones that can't get it through their heads that this town is on DROUGHT restrictions and the city will be OUT OF WATER before the end of the year if we don't all comply.... So the park management waters their fucking KY blue grass every day, gets fined and passes the fines on to us by jacking the rent every six months (they'd do it more if the state would allow them.)

The neighbors are pretty good; it's quiet and very calm and that's not bad. The house is as well constructed as my parents' tractoids ever were (in other words, nothing is plumb, nothing is square, and nothing is level...); it is efficient.

I'd like it better if we could do something on the lines of a co-op and own shares of the park instead of renting. That would improve the system immeasurably.

Politicat

[belladonna]

9. The worst?

When people post things like this and make fun of people forced to live in trailer parks.... nice to assume that people are trash because of where they live.

[RoyGBiv]

10. Well, umm...

Watching a little girl rummage around in the rubble of what had once been her home looking for her cat was pretty horrible. What made it worse was that I couldn't help her, rather had to try to convince her to get out of there so as to avoid the potentially live power lines strewn about.

I learned she eventually found her cat, alive no less, but her home and everything her family owned was destroyed. They had no insurance, and they, along with several other families from the same park, lived in a shelter for several months until they could find new homes they could afford.

[scarlet_owl]

11. I live in one now.

No wait-it's technically a "Land-lease community". It's pretty nice here, but there has been a problem lately with teenagers vandalizing things. The owner of the park keeps out the riff-raff. You have to have a background check and be approved. The guy who runs the place is also getting rid of the old trailers to make room for houses like the one we have (modular home). When I was a kid, we lived in a really horrible trailer park where the water ran with rust and chlorine, and people got stabbed on a nightly basis.

[underpants]

12. We used to love going through one in the school bus

We'd be bouncing on the seats and if you hit it just right you were almost weightless if but for a few nano seconds. A lot of people don't know that that is were NASA learned to train the astronauts, it's true you can look it up.

[RebelOne]

13. I live in one now, so let's not trash trailer parks.

[prolesunited]

14. What a rude, insensitive thread

Perhaps you need a little more work on your empathy and compassion.

[Danger Duck]

16. I just live in a park

under a swingset. What I wouldn't give for a trailer, or even a wagon.

[Teddy_Salad]

17. I agree

I hate these trailer park bashing threads that seem to pop up here at DU.

Geez, some of us sound like fucking repugs when dissing or making fun of trailer parks.

I thought all of us here were better than that.

[RebelOne]

23. I agree also. It really pisses me off.

I live in a trailer and I'm quite happy. I own it and only pay $289 lot rent, which includes garbage pick up and water. I really become so annoyed at people who seem to look down their noses at those who live in mobile homes. Most people who live in trailer parks are not ignorant, illiterate, beer-swilling redneck Republicans.

[RebelOne]

24. The person who posted this threat, in my opinion,

doesn't have too many smarts.

[yellowcanine]

15. I lived in a real nice one for a year in State College, PA. It was

actually a 1 bedroom apartment - 1 end of a 14 ft wide duplex. The landlord was a guy named Ralph and he kept the place real nice. Rent was very affordable and it was close enough to the Penn State campus to ride my bike. Corny name though - "Wheel Estate Acres." Ralph's idea of a joke, I guess.

[ScreamingMeemie]

18. I lived in a mobile home (what many like to call a trailer) for years and

they were some of the best years of my life.

It was my first real home with my daughter...It was the home I began my life with my husband in...it was the home I brought the infant son we so waited and prayed for home to...It was where I laughed with friends...

It is wrong to assume that people are trailer trash...or that bad things happen in trailer parks.

Here's a true story:

Nothing remotely odd or needing police interference ever happened in my neighborhood until we moved to the suburbs. Our first summer here (in a middle class very nice neighborhood) we got to witness an FBI drug bust...door shoot down and all right across the street and down two houses. Go figure, eh? I thought that was only supposed to happen in trailer parks....

[sundog]

20. uhhh...

Yeah, I have to chime in too... I was on the street (literally) at one point of my life -- a trailer park would have seemed like the Ritz-Carlton then.

Life has been kind to me since then, but I definitely know the taste of poverty & despair.

You never know what card life deals people... we're all equal as humans... Everyone has a story to tell...

[Red State Rebel]

21. Lived in one when first married -

It was 7 or 8 years old at the time and pretty shabby inside so we refurbished it. After living there for 5 years we sold it and it really helped toward our downpayment on a house.

I'll never forget my inlaws when we first told them what we were going to do giving us that "ewwww you don't want to live in a TRAILER". A few years later when #2 son was getting married and they were moving into an expensive apartment the inlaws were advising "why waste your money, buy a trailer for a while".

[NorthernSpy]

22. I lived in a trailer park for a while when I was little

The self-righteously affluent can go to hell. They can take their better-than-thou attitude with them.

I guess in some people's eyes, the American working class is just too darn unaesthetic to deserve anything so fine as solidarity, or even just a little basic good will or respect.


Mary