Unpaid sewer bills put mobile home residents on edge

JEFFERSON COUNTY For weeks, residents of the Brookside Mobile Home Park worried theyd be homeless.

The fear began when letters from the Northeast Public Sewer District showed up in early February at the park near Fenton.

Unfortunately, the owner of Brookside Mobile Home Park has not been paying the bill for sanitary sewer service, and the district has been making attempts to collect the balance due without success, the letter read. This leaves the district with no choice but to terminate service to the park. Without sanitary sewer service, Jefferson County could declare the park unfit for occupancy and the park could not be occupied.

The unpaid bill is more than $90,000.

The deadline to pay before cutting off service to the roughly 200 homes initially was Monday, but has been pushed back to April 10.

Resident Edward Sockbeson didnt know what to do. He and his wife Cindy had dutifully paid their monthly $340 pad rent, which was supposed to cover sewer, water and trash, he said.

Their mobile home, which they bought about nine years ago for $4,000, is not fit to move. And they didnt have anywhere to take it anyway.

We were trying to figure out where wed have to go and find a place, and we dont have the money to put down for first months rent, said Edward Sockbeson, 57.

On Monday, Cindy Sockbeson and four other Brookside residents filed suit against Jeffco Holdings, owner of the park. They are represented by John Ammann, a St. Louis University law professor who directs the schools legal clinic.

Ammann and students Ben Tiller and Angela Kunz appeared before Jefferson County Circuit Judge Gary Kramer on Thursday. They asked him to order that starting next month, rent checks are paid to Public Administrator Steve Farmers office, which will then pay the bills their rent is supposed to cover. Bob Hembrock, the sewer districts executive director, and Bob Sweeney, the districts attorney, were there too and had no objections to the plan, which Kramer approved.

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Unpaid sewer bills put mobile home residents on edge