With 2 days to vacate, mobile home park residents fret

Tenants at the Tampa Sun Mobile Home Park got an unwelcome notice on their doors Wednesday afternoon:

Pack up and leave by 5 p.m. Friday.

"I sincerely regret that Tampa Sun will be closing," said the three-paragraph letter. "I always planned to [continue] to operate the park. That plan, however, is no longer feasible under the circumstances."

The notice did not say what the circumstances are.

"What can we do?" asked resident Dana Patton. "The managers got fired. The maintenance men got fired."

Come Friday night, she and her five children could be homeless.

"We don't have anybody to even call," Patton said. "Corporate's not giving us an answer. So what are we to do?"

Property records list the park's owner as Tampa Sun Mobile Home Park LLC, with a mailing address in Hollywood, Fla. Company representatives could not be reached for comment.

According to the posted notice, residents are on week-to-week leases. They have been told to remove their possessions from the park by Friday or face having them disposed of by the landlord.

But there may be legal help for tenants of the 25 or so occupied mobile homes at the park, 1814 N. 47th St.

If the property owner intends to change the park's land use, Florida law requires that tenants be given adequate notice to vacate, said Tampa lawyer Patton Youngblood.

"If he knew more than six months ago, he needed to notify these tenants pursuant to this statute," Youngblood said. "If he didn't know with sufficient time to let them know, he's gonna have to extend it out another six months to comply with this particular statute."

Meanwhile, trash is building up where a Dumpster once stood and anxiety is building among tenants.

"There's a lot of babies here," William Smith said. "I mean there's a lot of grown men, there's a lot of grown women, but there's a lot of babies too. No one needs to be treated like this."