Shalom Baer Gee/MDN Markita Pietsch, left, and Shannon Cook stand outside their mobile home in Parkview Mobile Home Park in Minot. Oakland Communities of Minot sold the park at the end of December 2021, and residents report experiencing difficulties communicating with new management.

Residents at Parkview Mobile Home Park in Minot were relatively satisfied until they found letters on their doors that stated the park had been sold to a somewhat mysterious out-of-state entity. They said communication with the new company has been little to none. [VIEW PDF BELOW]

TenantNotice

“They were amazing, and now I’m upset. The whole point of us living here was it’s a nicer neighborhood compared to the other trailer parks. Our neighbors were pretty chill, and the management was really good,” Austin Flax said. Flax and his best friend have lived at Parkview since Dec. 10, 2020.

Oakland Communities of Minot previously owned Parkview, a 135-lot park that consists of rental homes as well as owned homes with rented lots. Meadowlark Homes managed the rented homes.

A letter dated Dec. 28, 2021, from Oakland Communities of Minot, LLC titled “Sale of Communities” appeared at tenants’ doors at the end of December, beginning of January.

It explained that the park had been sold to “Parkview MHP LLC, an affiliate of Homes of America, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company, who will also be managing property.” The letter stated that residents would hear from Homes of America in the “coming weeks” and provided a North Dakota area code number for residents to contact the new management.

The letter came with an attached page explaining how residents can sign up for an online portal for rent payment and create a service ticket for non-emergencies.

“The portal doesn’t have our lease information on it. It doesn’t have a company name on the header. It’s literally just, here, stick your money in here. We can do nothing else for you,” said Markita Pietsch, who has lived at the park for over two and a half years with her roommate, Shannon Cook. “There’s no maintenance request options like it (the letter) says.”

Seven weeks after receiving the letter, Park residents are frustrated. Flax, Cook and Pietsch said that a week after receiving the first letter, they received a second letter in the mail. The first was placed on the doors of the trailer homes. One resident said she only received the door letter.

The envelope for Flax’s letter was postmarked Jan. 5 in Bismarck. It bore no return address. The contents included the exact same announcement letter dated Dec. 8, 2021. Cook and Pietsch said their letter also had no return address.

“It was the same exact piece of paper that they had left on our door,” Cook said.

The phone number listed in the letter has yielded some sporadic luck for residents. Cook said she has left a number of voicemails regarding maintenance issues and rent payment issues. She had paid her rent, but the portal was showing she still owed it a month later. She got a call back on Jan. 27 after trying since the beginning of January.

“For like the first week of February, it still said that we owed for January and February,” Cook said. “Right around the first week of February, when I went in there to pay, finally January was off there.”

Flax’s year-long lease expired in December, and he hasn’t been able to speak to someone at the number, despite calling approximately 10 times.

“I haven’t called them in a hot minute because I know they’re not going to answer,” he said. “I definitely don’t plan on staying in this neighborhood anymore. We’re either going to get an apartment or go back with Meadowlark. They’re slightly more expensive, but I’m like, it would be better than having literally no management.”

Kris Jonkey, a resident at the park for almost two years, also said no one answered the number provided. She said she has called about 20 to 30 times and left a number of voicemails. Both Cook and Jonkey said that the man does not identify himself or the company he represents.

Jonkey had called to resolve a rent issue and discuss snow removal at the park after a snow storm in mid-January. She too had paid her rent, but her portal was showing that she still owed money. The issue was eventually resolved, and Jonkey said that a snow plow came out to the park once. She said she’s considering moving because of the ordeal, as are Flax, Pietsch and Cook.

“I’m thinking about moving only because of the maintenance is the way it is right now,” Jonkey said. “I don’t want to live in a rundown park because it is a nice park. I’ve been here two years. I’ve not had any problems, but now I don’t even know anyone. I can’t get an answer back or anything like that, and that’s not any kind of way to run a company.”

The Minot Daily News has verified that the number is answered by an automated voice and leads to an unidentified voicemail.

Oakland Communities, the former owner of the property, said that Parkview was sold to Homes of America on Dec. 31, 2021, along with another mobile home park in Minot. Larry Gullickson, general manager of Oakland Communities and president of the North Dakota Manufactured Housing Association, said the buyers were from out of state and were “very professional, very nice people.” He declined to identify them by name but said that Oakland Communities has no affiliation with them, and that he is aware of tenants’ struggles.

“We’ve communicated and expressed some of the people’s concerns, and they were just told to contact the number that was provided for them,” he said.

Gullickson said that his contact with Homes of America LLC originated from different states. He said he spoke with someone in South Carolina and New Jersey, but never anyone from Delaware, where the company is registered.

“That’s why we’re so reluctant to give any information out because we know it’s not starting out well,” he said. “They seemed, like I said, 100% professional. We didn’t anticipate any of this happening. I think that they’ve probably run into problems finding local management to handle properties of this size. We did have a management lady that was supposed to take over, and she lasted, I believe, three or four days and just said there was too much for her.”

The Minot Daily News contacted the North Dakota Secretary of State Office, they said that neither Parkview MHP LLC or Homes of America LLC are registered with the state and that out-of-state companies are required to register in North Dakota if they plan to do business in the state. The process is usually completed within two weeks.

Gullickson said the North Dakota Manufactured Housing Association may end up looking into the situation.

“Serving as a state board member, this is exactly what we look into,” he said. “I have to wait for these people (tenants) to reach out to us, the North Dakota Manufactured Housing Association.”