About 60 frustrated residents, many of them elderly, crammed into two small rooms at the Troy Oaks Community Clubhouse June 18 to protest a May 29 letter from owners Troy Oaks Homes and Residential Community LLC informing them of a $50 per month increase in lot rent. The mailing included 24 pages of rules and regulations.
About 60 frustrated residents, many of them elderly, crammed into two small rooms at the Troy Oaks Community Clubhouse June 18 to protest a May 29 letter from owners Troy Oaks Homes and Residential Community LLC informing them of a $50 per month increase in lot rent. The mailing included 24 pages of rules and regulations.
Troy Oaks is a four-decades old manufactured homes development on 90 acres in Troy Township, just south of LaDue Reservoir. The development was sold in September to a company doing business as Troy Oaks Homes and Residential Community LLC.
The company lists its address as a post office box in Orlando, Fla. Former owners serve as property managers.
Many of the residents at Monday’s meeting said they feared retributions and eviction if they gave their names, while others wanted to go on record.
“With the $50 raise in lot rent, I will pay $375 a month starting in July,” said Michele Gierlach, who has lived in a manufactured home in the Troy Oaks community for four years. “For that I get sewer and trash collection, period.”
Gierlach said the development has no amenities and few services.
“We mow our own yards and if our grass isn’t short enough, we’ll be evicted,” she said. “Our (private) roads are supposed to be filled in and paved every two years, but it hasn’t been done in several years.
Gierlach said the management company recently terminated the landscaper’s contract.
“They would only plow if the snow got over seven inches and they did not salt, so many people were often snowbound, especially the elderly,” Gierlach said. “We have 240 homes in Troy Oaks and the majority of us are seniors.”
Another woman, who did not want to provide her name, said her grandchildren visited and she was told to wash the chalk drawings they did off her sidewalk by the next day or she could be evicted.
Constant drainage problems, chronic low water pressure, high electric bills, rules several called “ridiculous,” lack of formal lease agreements, constant fear of being evicted and told to move their homes somewhere else, were among the problems residents listed.
Dean Weinhardt and his wife, Susan, organized the Monday night meeting. There is no active homeowners’ association for the development, he said.
He told the Geauga Maple Leaf he called for a meeting because he knew many people with concerns about the letter and enclosed rules.
“All of us here may not know each other, but we have one thing in common: we live in Troy Oaks and we don’t like these rules,” Weinhardt said.
Rules listed in the 24-page document included: sheds must be made of wood; only two vehicles can be parked in a driveway, toys and other outdoor items must be put away out of sight; no fuel tanks are allowed; residents are required to maintain their yards; and homeowners are required to wash their home’s exterior once a year.
Each resident received a copy of the rules along with a letter, dated May 29, notifying them that lot rent was going up $50 per month, beginning in July.
“It used to go up $5 or $10,” Gierlach said. “And we got a 10 percent discount for paying our rent by the first of the month. This time they raised it $50, with no discount.”
“Raising it $50 a month is nuts,” one unidentified man said. “If we had leases, they would not be able to do that. We’re all here month-to-month.”
Another woman added, “The law in Ohio states that there should be a year lease contract, which the owner hasn’t offered. And the drainage is their responsibility. It says so in the Ohio Revised Code.”
“The owner has no compassion,” resident Connie Piteo said. “He will evict you for anything. He doesn’t care.”
Many called for formation of a homeowners’ association, electing street representatives and consulting an attorney to tell them their rights under Ohio law. A few suggested placing the fee increase in escrow until the residents can get answers to their concerns.
A woman who gave her name as Mary recommended passing around a sheet for residents to sign if they are interested in forming an association and hiring an attorney. Most of the residents signed the sheet as the meeting broke up.
