New Hampton, IA- If home is where the heart is, than Roxanne Null's heart is just west of New Hampton.
On Saturday her landlord gave her a letter telling her she has two months to come up with $8,000 dollars or be evicted.
"We knew he was trying to sell the place we didn't know we would lose our homes," she said
In order to stay, she will have to pay a total of around 25 thousand dollars over the next three years.
"If I had the money, yeah I’d stay here you know but, I just ball."
So why the sudden eviction notice? Her current landlord says he was testing the market, and when he found a buyer, he didn't think it would lead to the park getting shut down.
"My last intention was for these people to have to move by any means. I didn’t want anybody to be displaced basically, that’s not the intent of the whole thing for sure," said Chad Sweitzer.
The new owner will only allow trailers on one side of the property, but picking up and moving isn't an option for some. For many of the folks living here, even if they could afford to stay their mobile homes, some built in the 1970’s, aren't very mobile anymore.
On top of the $25,000 for three years, they will also have to put in their own sanitary sewer. That’s because the liner in the park's lagoon is too old and could be starting to leak. It will require even more money. Something folks here say they don't have.
Like Roxanne, Nathan Albrecht spent nearly all his savings on his house. With no job and the country in the middle of a recession, the threat of eviction couldn't come at a worse time.
"This is like the worst time to do it, all the jobs are gone," Albrecht said.
Folks here wish their new landlord could give them other options, like raising the rent. Now on the first of May, Roxanne says she's facing the prospect of moving her family into a tent.
"He doesn't even know what he's doing to us out here, this is our lives he's affecting."
The park's new landlord would not comment on the evictions. Sweitzer says he has tried to get government assistance for making the more than $100,000 dollars in repairs, but since the park is privately owned he's only come to dead ends.
