Tenants sue mobile home park owner

DAGGETT • As the owner of the Santa Fe Mobile Home and RV Park evicts most of the beleaguered park’s residents, several tenants have filed lawsuits.

Six tenants, both former and current, claim that owner Erika Shapiro and former owner Eugene Naccarato, provided uninhabitable living conditions at the park and are seeking damages in small claims court ranging from $1,500 to $7,500. Shapiro has since evicted most of the tenants and is in the process of evicting others claiming they have not paid rent. The tenants claim the evictions are illegal.

“I loved to take the side of the underdogs, until Daggett,” said Shapiro, who lives in Seal Beach.

In addition to the pending lawsuits, Shapiro also faces citations from the California Department of Housing and Community Development for unsafe electrical wiring. In early August, state inspectors found that the wiring put tenants living in one space in the park in danger.

Shapiro has not made the repairs, which one electrician estimated at $65,000, because she cannot afford them, she said. Instead, Shapiro plans to evict all of the park’s tenants except two, fix the electric for the two remaining tenants and try to sell the park, which she said she inherited from Naccarato, a friend.

“I’m not interested in running a trailer park,” Shapiro said. “I had no idea this was going on, but I’m ready to take responsibility.”

The state has approved of Shapiro’s solution to the electrical problem, said Vicki Coore, an administrator with the housing and community development department.

Tenants, however, do not approve. Allen Rice is one tenant suing Shapiro and Naccarato. He said that for several months his trailer did not have electricity and that Naccarato, who lives near the park and served as a park manager, neglected to repair damages to the trailer.
“They’ve known about what’s wrong with that park, and they didn’t care,” Rice said about Shapiro and Naccarato.

Rice recently left the park. Shapiro denies that anyone in the park went without power. She is seeking to press theft and vandalism charges against Rice and other tenants for the condition in which the trailers were left.

Shonia Brescia is also suing Shapiro and Naccarato. She has not yet been evicted and also said tenants had been without electric or water. She said the park had a constant burning odor, something she blames on the faulty wiring, and sewage coming up from the ground. She thinks of Shapiro as a slum lord. Shapiro, in response, said the conditions at the park were not intentional.

“I’m not a slum lord. I’m not a lord of anything,” Shapiro said. “I’m a poor little old lady who stepped into this unknowingly.”

Court dates for the small claims hearings have been set for December. Naccarato could not be reached for comment.
 
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