Puyallup RV park rocked as new owners hand out termination notices. Residents call foul
Jennette Gorton gets animated, and fast, describing the mysterious notice she received earlier this month.
For the last four years, Gorton, 46, has lived at the Puyallup River RV Park on River Road, she said. Along with her husband and two children — a disabled 27-year-old son and a 16-year-old daughter — Gorton’s family rents one of the 41 mobile home spaces on the property, which also goes by the name River Lane RV Park, paying $495 a month.
So when a letter without a return address arrived at Gorton’s home on Nov. 6, informing her that her residency was being “terminated” at the end of the month, she was upset, shocked and “a little pissed off,” she said.
“We have nowhere else to go,” Gorton said. “My kids are screwed for Christmas because we have to come up with money to move. Christmas is ruined. Thanksgiving is ruined. It’s very stressful.”
Gorton’s family wasn’t alone.
The uncertainty she now faces is a familiar story at the Puyallup River RV Park.
On the very same day Gorton received a “notice to terminate residency,” so did a number of other residents, a handful of people told The News Tribune this week.
The notices, reviewed by The News Tribune, provided no cause for the action. They noted that “judicial proceedings may be instituted for your eviction if you do not surrender possession of these premises on or before the date set forth above (Nov. 30).”
The group receiving the notices included Fethi Hepcakici, a 62-year-old who said he has rented space at the park since 2015.
Hepcakici said that many of the people who received the surprise notices are elderly, disabled or mothers with small children. A community of neighbors has developed over the years at the park, he said, and people are now filled with fear and anxiety.
Seeing that reaction inspired Hepcakici to reach out the Tenants Union of Washington for help, he said.
Amy Tower, a spokesperson for the tenants union, told The News Tribune that she recently visited the park to meet with tenants facing displacement and that her organization subsequently filed a complaint with the state Attorney General’s Office.
Tower is hoping the AG’s office “will be able to help mediate and give folks more time to move,” she says, suggesting that the 24-days notice affected residents were given might be a violation of state law.
Hepcakici is far more direct.
“It just didn’t seem right,” he says, calling the situation “fishy.”
Puyallup River RV Park residents can be forgiven if they are confused by recent events.
In August, the mobile home community at 2916 River Road E., was purchased by a collection of newly established LLCs for a sale price of $1.8 million. Deciphering the precise ownership structure overseeing the park is a challenge.
Paperwork filed with the Washington Secretary of State’s office reveals a a tangled web of California-based real estate investors and email addresses, none of whom responded to calls and emails from The News Tribune.
Attempts by The News Tribune to reach the new owners of the mobile home community eventually led to an email from Mary Englund, who described herself as the director of operations for WGP Property Management, yet another LLC with an apparent stake in Puyallup River RV Park.
While Englund says she’s “not at liberty to discuss” who or what now owns Puyallup River RV Park, she would say that WGP has managed the property since it was purchased in August.
Englund also confirmed that the termination notices Gorton, Hepcakici and others described were delivered to “some” residents on Nov. 6. Englund said her company plans to maintain the property as a mobile home community serving low-income tenants.
Englund and Ranita DiMaio, who introduced herself as the onsite property manager in a follow-up phone interview, said “less than half” of Puyallup River RV Park residents received the notices. They declined to provide a specific number, however.
Both were far more forthcoming when it came time to discuss the reasons behind the notices, and the picture they paint of the community is ominous.
Via email, Englund described Puyallup River RV Park as “a notorious drug-trafficking hotspot” and a “magnet for drugs and crime.”
The tenancy termination notices, Englund wrote, largely went to “specific tenants who pose a safety threat to our community, based on possession of illegal firearms, trafficking in drugs, or involvement in other illegal activities.”
Speaking to The News Tribune, DiMaio clarified that not all of the notices were related to alleged criminal activity at the mobile home community. Some of them, she said, were related to more routine matters, like nonpayment of rent or a history of failing to abide by the park’s rules.
“They’re normal property management issues,” DiMaio said, adding that her company is currently working with a number of affected tenants on plans to extend their residencies beyond the Nov. 30 deadline initially provided
The decision to distribute the notices, DiMaio explained, was made for “various reasons,” and on a “case-by-case basis.”
The same goes for agreements to extend residencies, she said, some of which will stretch into February and perhaps beyond.
Ultimately, though, DiMaio said all of it comes down to a simple goal: Trying to ensure that Puyallup River RV Park residents have a safe place to call home.
DiMaio said she’s been onsite property manager at the mobile home community since September and recalled seeing multiple examples of open-air drug dealing and plenty other nefarious behaviors performed in broad daylight.
“It’s a disservice to our tenants to not have enough respect for them and regard for their quality of life to allow this to go on,” she said of the alleged criminal activity at the park and her company’s attempt to snuff it out.
It’s what residents deserve, DiMaio argued.
“We’re trying to do good,” Englund added, particularly concerned with what she described as a significant number of children who don’t appear to be attending school.
“This is not something where we’re trying to hurt people,” Englund said. “We want a better community, and we are working together to do that.”
A description of law enforcement activity at the mobile home park provides some evidence of DiMaio and Englund’s contentions.
According to the Pierce County Sheriff’s office, which has jurisdiction in the area where the mobile home park is located, there have been 719 calls for service since the beginning of 2011.
So far in 2019, there have been 51 such calls.
Those calls, according to information relayed to The News Tribune by Pierce County sheriff’s spokesperson Ed Troyer, range from “animal control” issues to “assaults, burglaries, disorderly conduct, domestic violence, motor vehicle theft, noise complaints, robberies, runaways, shots fired, sex offender registration, suicide attempts/threats, thefts, and welfare checks.”
Overall, Troyer said, the number of service calls originating from the park is “absolutely” high and that the park is a “known trouble spot.”
Presented with the dire description of his community offered by his new landlords, all Hepcakici could do was laugh.
While he acknowledged that there has been some criminal activity at the park over the years — like an occasional stolen bike, for instance, or drug dealing he’s witnessed in an alley near the park — he again stressed that many of the residents who received termination notices are older, disabled, on a fixed income or the parents of school-age children.
Even if some facing displacement have broken the law, not everyone is a criminal, he argued.
Himself included.
“They’re being misled to think that, somehow. I just don’t understand it,” Hepcakici, who believes some of the issues might actually be stemming from nearby vacant properties, said.
“I know one thing: I’ve never had the police called on me, and I’ve never missed rent, so why am I singled out?” he added. “If i have to speak for myself, then I will. The police haven’t come knocking on my door.”
For Hepcakici, Gorton and the other households now facing an uncertain future at Puyallup River RV Park, the big question is how much longer they’ll be able to stay, and how they’ll afford to relocate when the time comes.
Hepcakici said he knows one thing for certain.
“There’s no way,” he said, that the people around him will be able to relocate without substantial hardship, especially considering the lack of affordable housing in the area.
“They’re not going to be ready for this,” Hepcakici added. “They live month to month, paycheck to paycheck.”
This story was originally published November 27, 2019 at 5:13 PM.
