Mirror photo by J.D. Cavrich Local police and Clear Creek Company officials speak outside of a mobile home at Blair Mobile Home Park in East Freedom on Monday.

Mirror photo by J.D. Cavrich
Local police and Clear Creek Company officials speak outside of a mobile home at Blair Mobile Home Park in East Freedom on Monday.

EAST FREEDOM — When Desirae Faust arrived at her Freedom Township mobile home Sunday evening, she quickly noticed the pungent smell of kerosene.

“I’m like, something’s not right,” she said. “There’s kerosene everywhere. I told my boyfriend: ‘Get the kids out of the house.’ I didn’t know if it was going to blow up.”

Someone had cut the line carrying kerosene from an outdoor tank to her home, spilling the flammable, toxic liquid around and under the building — and forcing the family to move out indefinitely.

It was the latest blow in an ongoing dispute among renters and owners at the Blair Mobile Home Park, an expanse of land along Dunnings Highway containing dozens of homes. Police are investigating both the kerosene incident and a near-simultaneous fire at a park official’s part-time home, while residents call on state authorities to look into the landlord’s business practices.

“Someone’s going to get shot up here, is what’s going to happen,” Freedom Township Police Chief Terry Dellinger said Monday. “I just want to stop this before someone gets hurt or killed.”

Irritation among park residents has bubbled for years, some said, ever since Maryland-based landlord Bob Brown took over the park.

The once-well-maintained land has deteriorated, with streetlights no longer lit, roads dotted with potholes and foul-smelling brown water pouring from faucets, they said.

Reached by phone, Brown disputed that assessment.

“We are trying to clean this park up and make it a clean, pleasant place to live,” he said. “I notice in these parks, about 80 percent of these people are not the problem and 20 percent are the ones you focus on.”

Placing the blame

Problems ramped up in recent months, when workers installed water meters and Brown’s representatives began posting notices calling for some homeowners to pay back bills for the park’s well water.

“For years it had always been included in our rent,” said Pam Musselman, who has lived in the park for 32 years.

Some residents protested or refused to pay their bills, complaining that the charges violated their leases and that the water was of poor quality. Joel Ramsey, Faust’s boyfriend, was among those most vocally “bucking the system,” as Dellinger put it.

About two weeks ago, Ramsey and Faust returned home to find their water supply had been cut off without warning. A few other residents lost their water as well, Faust said.

Faust was furious about the cutoff — especially after she learned that Brown, the property owner, appeared to be charging rent for homes he didn’t own. The park’s land is owned by a corporation apparently controlled by a member of Brown’s family, but the homes themselves are split: Some are owned by their residents, who pay fees for the ground, while others are seemingly owned and rented out by Brown or a company in his name.

Faust said she learned that Brown was renting houses that had been taken over by Blair County for failure to pay taxes. County officials couldn’t immediately be reached to confirm the homes’ status, but Dellinger described the situation similarly to Faust.

“The trailer park continued to rent these trailers out, collecting rent for the trailer plus the ground while not paying any taxes to the county and using the county’s property to increase their profits,” he said.

Brown argued otherwise. He placed the blame on Blair County tax officials, who he said encouraged people to buy lien-ridden mobile homes for tiny sums without explaining the ramifications.

New owners found themselves faced with huge bills and blamed others when they realized what had happened, he said. In some cases, residents outright refused to pay any rent or water bills.

“Now they’re totally amazed to find that they have liens on these things. There’s all kinds of expenses associated with these homes,” he said.

‘Only a few people’

Despite the mid-October water cutoff, Ramsey, Faust and their family remained in their home, stopping by relatives’ houses to shower. It was on the way back from one such trip Sunday, they said, that they found the kerosene spilled around their home.

“It was malicious,” Ramsey said in front of the mobile home Monday. “I do have my suspicions about who’s behind it.”

The family will now have to move out as environmental officials and contractors clean the site. The American Red Cross is helping the family secure a temporary home, Faust said.

About the same time as the kerosene incident, a fire broke out at a home often used by Precious Breinich, a temporary representative Brown had appointed to oversee the park. Breinich, who frequently stays with her boyfriend at the park, said she has received threats in recent weeks — apparently for her association with the property owner.

Breinich said it appeared someone had cut through the fencing material under her boyfriend’s mobile home and thrown or poured an accelerant under the building. Police said they’ve contacted a state police fire marshal to investigate the scene.

Breinich disputed the other residents’ accounts of the ongoing conflict, arguing that a handful are angry that new management has more strictly enforced the rules. The controversial water bills were legal and included in an addendum to the residents’ leases, she argued.

The prior property manager had sloppily enforced rent and bills, Breinich and Brown said. Now that some residents face back bills and tougher enforcement, they’ve rebelled.

Brown pointed the blame most directly at Ramsey, whom he accused of making threats.

“It’s only a few people that are doing this. Most are not doing it,” Brown said, noting that he’s worked with dozens of renters on long-term payment plans to cover money they owe him.

The world of business

That doesn’t appear to satisfy some residents — including Pam Musselman, the longtime resident who complained of foul-smelling well water and crumbling infrastructure. She disputed Brown’s claim that the park’s well water is tested daily and lashed out at the suggestion that residents like her ought to pay monthly water bills as high as $120 while some homes don’t even have meters.

“He’s the scum of all landlords we’ve had,” she said. “It’s the truth.”

Breinich, who said she’s contemplating an application to serve as the park’s long-term manager, blamed a vocal minority who don’t understand or appreciate the system of rental and ownership park landlords operate in.

“It’s a corporate world of business,” she said, puffing a cigarette outside the now-evacuated house where Ramsey and Faust lived. “A lot of the residents in this park don’t want to live in the corporate world of business.”