OAK HILL, WV (WOAY) – Some residents of the Briarwood Place Mobile Home Park are upset after receiving a letter from the property owners stating their rent would more than double in the span of one month.
There are more than 30 trailers at the mobile home park. Most of the residents own their trailer and rent the plot of land it sits on.
Barbara Maynor is one of the residents whose rent is increasing. She says she’s lived there for years and has never seen her rent increase this high before.
“I’ve lived here for about four years and I bought my trailer,” Maynor said. “My lot rent was $155. Jan 31 we received a letter saying our lot rent was going up to $435, just to keep our trailer on the land.”
Some of the residents say they are on fixed incomes and can’t afford to move their trailer if they can’t afford the rent increase.
The cost to move a mobile home ranges from $1,000 to $20,000, or even higher.
Another resident, Donna Stewart, says she’s grown tired of not hearing any explanation from the landlord.
“I’ve called three times a day since I got this notice, not one response back,” Stewart said.
Many of the residents say one of the biggest reasons they are upset is the lack of improvements made to the property to justify the increase.
In the letter given to residents, the property owners state they repaved the roads and have more in store to improve the community.
But the residents aren’t happy with that explanation.
Some residents say the new pavement is worse than the gravel road it used to be, citing issues they had during the recent ice storms.
The property owners have yet to elaborate to the residents on what other improvements will be made to justify the rent increase.
“I don’t see how that would benefit anybody in the park to raise it that high,” another resident, April Kincaid, said. “I could understand if they’d say they would take over the water bill or something like that, not just to raise it and do nothing.”
The rent increase for the residents takes effect on March 1, with many seeing rent increases of more than 150%, and others as high as 180%.
WOAY reached out to the property managers of the Briarwood Place Mobile Home Park for comment, but we have not yet received a response.
