A rusty basketball hoop sits lonely amid the unkempt landscape of the Hill Mobile Home Park in Bowling Green.
A flock of wild turkeys mills about in the grass, surrounded by abandoned trailers that just last year were home to working-class Caroline County families and retirees.
In May 2024, Judge Robert Reibach gave several families 10 days to move out after the owners of the park, Englewood, N.J.-based Homes of America, Inc., requested that they be evicted from the property.
They owned their trailers, but not the land, and moving the mobile homes proved too costly for many.
Two residents, however, remain.
Sisters Viola Medley, 73, and Mildred Tufail, 70, weren’t asked to leave — until this past April.
Medley and Tufail received “pay or quit” notices on April 11, stating they owed $5,255 each in unpaid rent and late fees.
They described the four months leading up to an eviction hearing in Caroline General District Court on Monday as stressful — Tufail had heart surgery two weeks prior — but were relieved when Judge Jane Reynolds dismissed the cases before they presented any evidence.
Despite the outcome of the eviction hearing, Medley and Tufail remain on edge about the future of the mobile home park, an existence that has become increasingly tenuous over the years. They’re seeking a written declaration stating the owners’ plans for the property.
Under the Manufactured Home Lot Rental Act that went into effect in Virginia in July of 2024, if a mobile home park owner plans to sell or redevelop the property, they must provide relocation expenses for their tenants up to $5,000. Tufail would like to have her trailer moved to a different location. Medley said that while her home is habitable, it would not survive a transport, so she would like to rent a small single-family home.
Attorneys for Homes of America did not state their intentions for the property during court hearings in 2024 and this year.
“We need the letter stating where we live at is being sold or it’s closing down,” Tufail said. “But they refuse to give us that letter.”
Caroline County Director of Planning and Community Development Leon Hughes said the county only requested the park’s owners keep abandoned trailers secured. But they haven’t had any conversations about plans to sell, the state of the grounds, or issues with remaining residents.
“They want us to abandon our homes, so they don’t have to pay,” Medley said.
Hill Mobile Home Park Property Manager Trevor Zyler and an attorney for the Charlottesville-based Scott Kroner, PLC, the law firm representing Homes of America, rushed away and declined to comment when asked their intentions for the park following a continued hearing in the sisters’ eviction case on Aug. 4.
The attorney gave Tufail an oral offer of $2,000 for the title to her trailer outside the courtroom. Tufail quickly rebuffed the offer and told Zyler and the attorney that her trailer is worth much more.
“This is a game that city slick people play, not country people,” Tufail said. “This is how they operate when you’ve got something they want … This game is already set, and we just keep asking for a letter if the park is closing down. Why is it we’re the only two people left in a complete, whole trailer park? There is a game going on. I know the game. The game is they want my place.”
Neither Zyler nor the attorney showed up for the Aug. 18 hearing. Scott Kroner representatives declined to comment when reached by telephone, and Zyler did not return several calls seeking comment.
Medley and Tufail were prepared to present a stack of documents to Judge Reynolds showing that their lot rent was up to date through May 2024. The longtime residents said they faithfully traveled to Mineral in Louisa County to hand-deliver payment every month to Hill’s office at 1 Zarin Avenue, even during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The sisters, both retired bus drivers from Washington, D.C., said they were stunned when, after they paid rent in May, the office clerk informed them the park would no longer be accepting payments.
The clerk signed a photocopy of their May payment, and the sisters did not pay lot rent for the next 11 months.
They said they did not believe they were misled by the clerk, especially after receiving notices in February of this year that their remaining balance was only $75. But two months later, Zyler requested 11 months of unpaid rent.
Medley and Tufail, who both own their trailers, said it was the first notice they received that they were behind on rent. They said they received other text messages from Zyler over the past year but never about unpaid rent.
“If the full balance is not received within five calendar days upon receipt of this notice, this notice informs you of termination of your rental agreement and the initiation of eviction proceedings and judgment proceedings,” Zyler wrote in the pay or quit notice.
The property manager went on to state that the eviction will involve possession of the premises and that the judgment will be for money, rent, late fees, legal fees, court costs and other outstanding charges.
“Full payment within five days will reinstate the rental agreement,” Zyler added.
Tufail said she’s even more confounded by the efforts to collect unpaid rent because she received $325 of a $700 security deposit back from Hill in March.
“They shouldn’t have done that if I owe $5,000,” she said.
Tufail and Medley said they will continue to wait until they receive final word of the owner’s plans for the park.
“I don’t understand why these people won’t just come out and say what they have to say,” Tufail said.
