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'Taps are bone dry' | Muskegon Co. mobile home park without water

A resident says management shut off the water Monday without any notice.

NORTON SHORES, Mich. — Residents of a Muskegon County mobile home park are hunkering down without any running water. 

One resident of Oaks Mobile Home Park is now coming forward after he says the park cut off their water on Monday without telling them.

"What do we do?" said James Barber.

Barber says he has called this place home for just about the last 16 years – yet, at the moment, he says it's unlivable.

"They're treating us like second-rate citizens, like we're peasants. And I'm fed up," he told 13 ON YOUR SIDE Wednesday.

Until the water is sorted out, Barber moved his fiancée and kids across town into a hotel room. 

"So that my family could feel like humans again," Barber said. "But the constant ignoring and not giving us answers has gotten really ridiculous."

He says he's made several unanswered attempts to get in touch with park maintenance.

The taps went dry, ironically, about an hour after Barber received his water bill. 

"The water is still off as of now, but 44 or 45 hours later we can't flush the toilets, we can't take showers, you know, I want some you know some answers," Barber said.

Park maintenance did answer when 13 ON YOUR SIDE called, confirming the water was off. They said a crew was in Lansing buying the part needed to fix it after they said none of the repair companies they contacted could do the work.

Management, meanwhile, said they were doing everything they could after a four-inch water main burst and left the system without pressure. 

When asked why residents had not been kept in the loop, a manager said she didn't have contact information for most and that she hadn't known service would be interrupted. 

Barber says this has happened before, with what he claims were four previous interruptions throughout the month.

"You're shutting the water off, especially when it's 27 degrees out and we got a ice storm coming I mean, what is wrong with you people?" he said.

Barber says he's never paid his lot rent late, yet now shelling out upward of a hundred bucks a night to get the family a roof over their heads with running water – it's now a question mark. 

"They don't care… they're treating us like second-class citizens like we're peasants because we live in a trailer park," he said. "I didn't ask for this and those 300 people at that trailer park didn't ask for it, neither."

As of late Wednesday evening, the park manager tells us they are working to restore water but according to Barber, the water is still not back on.

We will update this story as we learn more.

    

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