A Mysterious New Landlord Is Making Life Hell for the Residents of an Irving Mobile Home Park

Harvest Partners and Eliot Barnett are not "mysterious", they have been commercial property developers for a couple of decades. their most visible project was Shops at Park Lane (Nordstrom Rack, Dicks, Off 5th, Whole Foods) which they lost to their lender in the recession.

I know it is ironic to say but mobile homes are anything but mobile, so the tenants who have their units at the park really have a difficult time moving. However, if the Lease Agreement is egregious they can refuse to sign it. There are several legal aid groups available to them to use if they desire. Once they sign it and agree to the terms of the Agreement they have to follow it.

Looking up the location it is hard to see why Harvest is trying to clear out the property. It is just south of Shady Grove and west of Loop 12, not exactly a hot area for development. No frontage on either Shady Grove or Loop 12. There must be a plan but it's not obvious by any means.

First of all, did these people have existing leases.  If so, the new management can come in and demand all they want, but if they refuse to sign new leases while under the existing lease, there is nothing the new company can do.  Fines, bullshit, eviction, not going to happen.  Unless that fine was listed in the enforceable lease that was in effect, they cant make up new fines.  I lived in a property that was bought by a new management company.  They came in and tried to start charging for trash pick, covered parking, additional grounds keeping fees and raising rent $50 effective immediately.  We refused to pay, then got sent a certified demand letter.  I walked up to the office with effective lease in hand, went through the whole thing with the property manager showing them that all the things they tried to charge were listed as included in rent and told them to shove it.  We also turned in our notarized 60 day notice at the same time as we new shit was going downhill quick.  To top the story off, we got a $17 check back when we moved out followed by a bul for $4700 for repairs to the apartment.  They painted, replaced carpet and blind.  We had lived there 7 years, no shit it needed paint and carpet, but thats waht deposits are for.  Needless to say 3 years later, Im still fighting with this company to get the collections off my record. Yeah Fuck Willmax, dont EVER rent from them

Screw the poor seems more and more to be the operational philosophy of the United States of America. The poor have no lawyers. They cannot buy elections. They have no real power. Therefore they are fair game.

This can be made to work as long as the poor are a small minority in the overall population. I mean, who cares? I don't live in a trailer park. I don't have a rattletrap car that I can't afford to fix parked in my driveway. 

But studies clearly show that every year more and more members of the middle class slip below the line into poverty. For many, poverty -- the trailer park, one asshole landlord with a hot property to develop, or worse  -- is one catastrophic illness away. 

But, hey, it's the American way, isn't it?  What our Forefathers had in mind?

So, here's the question: What happens when a critical number of ordinary middle-class Americans discover that they are now poor Americans? How do we imagine they are going to take it? Or, more to the point, how are we going to take it?  Another upset election in which we blandly exchange one party for the other? Or something else entirely? 

Looking at history with a cold, sober eye, what are the prospects of Our Country As We Know It surviving another, say, twenty years? Forty years? When those years pass, which side of the poverty line wiil we find ourselves and our children and grandchildren?

Not trying to stir up trouble, here. Just asking.  

@mavdog  "Once they sign it and agree to the terms of the Agreement they have to follow it."

Wrong. ... unlawful agreements, and those signed under duress or coercion, are void(able).

@mavdog They know the people living there are probably not sophisticated legal types, and they also know moving the trailers is not a option for 99.99% of the tenants. They also know they can con them into signing the new agreements. 

And Shops at Park Lane is a poorly designed hideous monstrosity. 

@bmarvel 

To be honest Bill, when has it not been the rule that the poor are who gets the short end of the stick?

It has been even worse on the poor in the past, today there are  many more avenues for the poor to get aid. At least until the new Social Darwinians of the right get their hands on things.

The middle class has been squeezed big time, there are all these social programs for the poor, and the upper class has had a great run ever since 1980's trickle down happened. Middle class don't get the help with tuitions for college, tax relief via the write-offs, etc.

There is a history of the middle class growing by reduction in the lower class, but that isn't happening today. There is a grwoing upper class, too. The middle is shrinking, and you're right, that is not positive for America long term.

@bmarvel

This has been going on for a loooong time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYqF_BtIwAU

@bmarvel

Jack-In-The-Box and reality TV.

Bread and circuses.

@DonkeyHotay 

"unlawful agreements..are void(able)". well duh, but as far as we know these Lease Agreements were not "unlawful".

there is a very large difference between egregious and unlawful...

@Montemalone 

agree with the comment on Shops at Park Lane. confusing, it does not flow, hard to walk from section to section. About the only place I visit is Whole Foods, and that's because I can go in and out from Greenville. Entering or exiting from Central is a beating.

@mavdog The argument that "things were worse in the past" is never a legitimate excuse for present conditions. Mavdog.

But the rapidly widening chasm between the very rich and the rest of us suggests that we are all very rapidly slipping back into that past. As you acknowledge, the "squeezed big time" middle class seemed destined to soon be numbered among the poor. 

If I were, oh, say, a Koch Brother, I'd try and get laws passed that redefine poverty, moving the line down a couple thousand dollars a year. Kind of like redefining democracy by changing the rules on who can and who cannot vote.    

@Montemalone @bmarvel "This has been going on for a loooong time:"

And with pretty much the same results, Monte.

@mavdog ... you really have no idea what you're yammering about, do you?

Take a Legal Contracts class ... or two ... and get back to us.

@rufuslevin ... the vile self-serving Rethuglykkkans blocked, obstructed and derailed his efforts ... as they always do.

@bmarvel @mavdog Kinda like other administrations and ideologies have been doing in the other direction; moving the line up a little bit each year to capture more of that 'poor' vote.

'A democracy can only last until a majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury." T Jefferson.

@DonkeyHotay 

you really have no idea what you're yammering about, do you?

if one looks at the "yammering", you are the one who is presumptive about an agreement being "unlawful".

the Lease is attached, can you point out any "unlawful" terms contained in the document that would render it "void"?

no?

okeydokey donkeyhotay

@RTGolden1 "A democracy can only last until a majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. T Jefferson."

FAIL!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Fraser_Tytler#Misattribution

@RTGolden1 @bmarvel @mavdog So, your argument, -- if I understand you, Golden -- is that you'd have no objection to reducing poverty by moving the line down, because that's what "other administrations and ideologies have been doing in the other direction." Is that correct? Because, by your logic, if there's nothing wrong with moving the line up, then there's certainly nothing wrong with moving it down. 

In other words, you would argue that poverty is merely an accounting trick, no different from juggling a few figures to move a bottom line from the loss to the profit column?

My admittedly cynical reference to the (very rich) Koch Brothers probably threw you off the track, Golden. But in general does it seem to you that the rich are getting a whole lot richer whereas those on the middle and the lower rungs of the ladder seem to be getting poorer and poorer? 

Would you suggest, then, cutting taxes to the wealthy in the hope that more of that wealth might, as they say, trickle down? 

Or would you say, yeah, poor getting poorer. What else is new?

Just wanted to get your thoughts beyond politics for a moment or two  -- "Kinda like other administrations" -- so that I can get your ideas on the widening gap between the wealthy and the rest of us. If you have any.

@DonkeyHotay @RTGolden1 attribution doesn't change the validity of the quote.

@bmarvel @RTGolden1 @mavdog First of all Marvel, let me correct a grave misconception you may have of me.  I don't speak of the poor in the abstract.  To me, those who make the 'average' income of 50k/year are moving in rarified air.  I do not consider myself to be poor, but I am clinging to the lower rungs of the ladder.  With a couple of 'accounting tricks' I could easily qualify for the programs being discussed, and fall into the poor category.

My point, that you so predictably missed, Marvel, is that moving the poverty line back and forth for political gains does nothing to solve the problem, and that both sides of the aisle are guilty of it.

@bmarvel @RTGolden1 @mavdog

We live in a country where families with two 6 figure incomes consider themselves solidly "middle-class".

I don't think the poor are actually getting that much poorer, it just seems that way to them in a world where people making $250,00.00 is considered "middle-class" and really wealthy folks in our society measure their wealth in Billions.

Our perspective is skewed wildly. It is, to a certain extent on the parts of our "elected leaders", an accounting trick.

@RTGolden1 ... so capitalist democracies are DOOMED to fail, ipso facto.

@rufuslevin @bmarvel @RTGolden1 @mavdog How would YOU define poverty, rufus? How would we recognize it when we see it?

@RTGolden1 @bmarvel @mavdog You misread me, Golden. Far from advocating that the poverty line be moved my point is that it makes no more sense to move it one way than the other.That is, I am against moving the poverty ljne , I think that is cheating, a bad idea, should NOT be done, That poverty is not a matter of accounting. It is a matter of being poor,, of having  no prospects or bleak prospects.

I am puzzled how you could so mistake me. Could you perhaps explain?

@TheCredibleHulk The actual figures, adjusted for inflation, say you're wrong, Hulk. Measured in terms of actual purchasing power, there are proportionately more poor today. How many Americans can afford to purchase a home, send their kids to college, both within the grasp of my father, a Woolworth's bookkeeper. How many today work two, even three jobs just to keep up? How many two-income households just to keep up? The man who owned the corner filing station was able to support his family and pay three employees a living wage.

How many people today who work at McDonald's or Walmart can afford what was once considered the basic middle-class lifestyle? I won't even try to describe the lives of the desperately poor --those who have no jobs -- except to say that as the middle class sinks into poverty, the plight of those at the absolute bottom becomes truly desperate.

By the way, how many people do you actually know who make $250,000- a year??  Where in the world do you live?

@bmarvel @TheCredibleHulk

Quite a few, and so do you - and you would be lying if you said you didn't. This town is swimming in money and if you don't actually know more than a few folks in that range, you are either ignorant of their earning power or you really just don't get out much.

Alternatively, how many truly "poor" people do you know?

I'll stipulate that the purchasing power of the "poor", when adjusted for inflation is not great, however, in terms of creature comforts and basic necessities, most of our "poor" people are probably in better shape now than at any other time in our nation's history. Gov't programs abound for those that take advantage of them and there are any number of private resources and charities as well, probably more than ever.

Anyway, that is really beside the point I was trying to make - That is the "accounting trick". Our perspective is skewed by the changes at the top of the pile, not the bottom. Politicians pander to the self-identified middle-class and I know more than a few families that have incomes north of $250k that feel like they are "middle-class" that these pols are talking directly to. That is the "accounting trick" the pols pull on us. They used to try to convince the poor that they were poor, now they are trying to convince the middle-class that they are poor.

Funny part is, comparatively speaking of the wealthiest of the wealthy, they are correct.

@rufuslevin @bmarvel @TheCredibleHulk You really need to pay attention, rufus. 

My point is that middle-class folks once could confidently look forward  to buying a home, sending their kids to college, a secure retirement. This, increasingly, is no longer the case. Middle-class folks now are finding themselves living lives we once would have considered lives of poverty.

@TheCredibleHulk @bmarvel I don't and I'm not lying. In all my years as a journalist I never made $250,000 in two years, toward the end of my career just barely in three, and that was with some freelance gigs added. 

I get out whole bunch. I'm not privy to other folks' finances but based on spending patterns, kind of car owned, size of house, struggle to pay for kids' college I know only one person I would be willing to bet makes $250,000 a year, a lawyer who represents mainly doctor clients.

I don't know many poor folks, either, but I see them all the time at Walmart, kids in tow, driving rattletrap cars, trying to make ends meet.

The top of the pile, Hulk, is precisely the problem, not because they have so much but because of their indifference and smug contempt for those who have little. And those "abounding" government programs you prattle on so blithely about are precisely the programs the $250,000-a-year crowd wants to take away. 

Finally, there is the stark, horrifying fact that prospects for those on the lower rungs get bleaker every year, in a  vicious kind of geometric progression: The lower you are, the lower you and your children are likely to end up..

I won't sink so low as to suggest you're lying, Hulk. But I must observe, you travel in very rarified circles. The median household income in the U.S.is around $50,000-55,000. And you confirm absolutely the impression I've gained over the years: The well-off have utterly no idea, none at all, how most people live.   

@bmarvel @rufuslevin @TheCredibleHulk ... while it might not be "poverty" per se, there certainly is no longer and financial / economic security for the vast majority of Americans who once identified as middle class.

Ain't Free Market Capitalism great?

@bmarvel @TheCredibleHulk

Not that I need to prove my bona fides for you, bmarvel, but I grew up in a blue-collar household, I have lived hand-to-mouth during the 15 years I was starting out my own career and financing my wife's college degree. I know a whole lot of people that make well under 50k a year and count many of them as my current and lifelong friends - not acquaintances.

I have also lived pretty well, comparatively speaking. Upon her graduation over a decade ago, my wife accepted 6-figure a job in Dallas through a contact with a former employer. We moved here, I got a job, and for awhile, we lived in that atmosphere, rubbing elbows and making friends with many of those folks, and trust me, she was on the low end of the salary profile for this crowd. She has since left that arena to start her own real estate business, so we're starting over again, to a certain degree.

I've got a pretty good idea of how both halves live.

@rufuslevin @bmarvel @TheCredibleHulk "how many of those "struggling" with busted up cars are actually illegal aliens?"

Not so many, rufus."Illegal aliens" for the most part don't, or can't drive. Did you perhaps mean "Hispanics?" That would include many second- and third-generation U.S. citizens, wouldn't it?

@TheCredibleHulk @bmarvel Then what in the world could lead you to write that the poor are a creation of skewed accounting, not lack of income? Your attitude, like too many "self-made" men, seems to be I made mine. Screw you. The poor do not have wives who sell real estate and make six figures. They have  not lived "pretty well" by any but Third World standards. 

To "a certain degree," Hulk, if you were ever poor you seem to have utterly lost touch with what that was like. Your blindness to the real lives of the real poor is simply staggering. You say you financed your wife's college degree -- while starting your own career, no less!

How ,many ordinary folks can finance the college education of one or two kids on $50,000 a year? And how many of those kids will find jobs enabling them to pay back that debt to parents or for college loans?

@bmarvel

And almost to a person, the folks that "had" money were always obsessing about it, and those that didn't, didn't.

@bmarvel @TheCredibleHulk

So, without even the benefit of really knowing any truly "poor" people, but just by seeing them at WalMart you have been able to deduce all of this sociopolitical commentary? Talk about condescending. Have you ever been to the ghetto at 3 a.m. bmarvel? I have - you can use your imagination on that one.

Nowhere did I say that the poor were a creation of skewed accounting. I said that politicians and their messengers are telling people that are making 6 figure incomes that they are justified in feeling "put-upon" by a system that is asking them for a few dollars in taxes. those are the "accounting tricks".

Furthermore, I said that our perspective is "wildly skewed" in an economy where people making 6-figure incomes consider themselves solidly "middle-class" and the wealthiest among us measure their wealth in BILLIONS.

We are basically in agreement, bmarvel.

I also never said I was "poor". I said I know what it's like to live hand-to-mouth while paying for a college education for a family member.

@TheCredibleHulk @bmarvel "Have you ever been to the ghetto at 3 a.m. bmarvel?"

I have indeed, many times Hulk. I wrote many stories in and of Denver's Five Points during my years as a journalist there. My roommate was an investigator for the Colorado Civil Rights Commission and I spent some time at parties there, and various residents were frequent visitors to our apartment. Before that, I worked my way through college as a sub U.S. mail carrier and a collection route truck driver, I would say about a quarter of the time in the Points.

I return to your original contention, that the poor are not really getting any poorer. That this is simply an artifact of the rise of the middle-class into the six-figure zone.  ("We live in a country where families with two 6 figure incomes consider themselves solidly "middle-class"") None of\ this touches on the plight of the poor. The poor remain, always, the poor, victims of those who hold and control power, which in  our country always translates to wealth. Every study shows that those on the margins, those once considered middle class, who steadily descending into poverty.

These are facts.No chatter about whether six-figure incomes qualify as poverty will change them.
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