Longview Daily News tells MHProNews that Yohnda Ellis is among those being told to leave the gated manufactured home community on Ocean Beach Highway.
“It’s not right to make an elderly person start over again like this,” she said Monday from a neighbor’s home where a dozen people gathered to join her in voicing concerns.
Sunny Meadows park manager Diana O’Sullivan has presented the Ellises with three “15-day notices to comply or vacate” orders since October.
“By occupying the area north of your space with vehicles, a shed, non-permitted activities and other personal property, you are in violation of the terms of your rules and regulations,” read the notices.
The issue is now being heard in Cowlitz Superior Court. On Wednesday, March 4, Butch Ellis had to help his 80-year-old mother to a courtroom table as she listened to the reasons she may soon have to leave her home of 25 years: A shed they had built with permission years ago spills over their property line and they aren’t parking where they should.
“The reason for this eviction is because they are refusing to remove from that space, refusing to stop parking in that space, refusing to comply,” attorney Craig McReary stated.
Though a judge denied the initial request to evict Yohnda Ellis, she’ll be back in court soon for a trial. “And we’re not the only ones who will be coming through here. The park manager is raising all sorts of havoc with people’s lives,” said 61-year-old Butch Ellis. A former bartender, Ellis is disabled and lives with his mother in the manufactured home she’s owned for decades. They said in the 25 years of residing at the park under multiple managers, they have never had a problem until now.
Next to Yohnda Ellis’ neatly kept blue home is a grassy field that serves as a common area. This is the space her 12-by-18-foot storage shed is apparently encroaching on. Previous managers had allowed the Ellises to build and maintain the shed, and they weren’t aware that it wasn’t on their rented space.
Moving the shed, beyond the question of where it would go, just isn’t possible, Butch Ellis said. “It would kill us,” he explained, adding that he and his mother live on fixed Social Security incomes.
Other residents have been given similar notices for parking violations or driving vehicles that were deemed too loud, Butch Ellis said. He accused O’Sullivan of fabricating charges to spur additional evictions.
Judge Michael Evans on Wednesday said the two sides are “at loggerheads” and mediation or a trial would be needed to resolve the matter. The Ellises will find out their court date next week.
For Yohnda and Butch Ellis, it’s a fight to save their home — and they’re fighting to the death. “She intends to die here, and I intend to die here,” Butch Ellis said. ##
(Photo Credit: Longview Daily News)
Article submitted by Sandra Lane to – Daily Business News – MHProNews.
