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Deadline Nears for Mobile Home Park Residents

The deadline to move out is a little more than a week away for residents of a mobile home park in Lycoming County. A company bought the property near Jersey Sho...

The deadline to move out is a little more than a week away for residents of a mobile home park in Lycoming County.

A company bought the property near Jersey Shore and has plans to build a water withdrawal facility for the natural gas industry.

That deadline is June 1 and so far, most of the residents have packed up and left.

Empty lots or stripped down trailers are all that is left of their homes.

There are others, however, who do not plan to go anywhere.

One of the more than 30 homes that made up Riverdale Mobile Home Park near Jersey Shore was on its way out.

It is not the first to go it will not be the last.

Signs make it clear construction of a water withdrawal facility along the Susquehanna River will start in June.

"I said you know if it comes down to it, this trailer ain't out of here by May 31 it is going to get parked up there on (Route) 220. I cannot go without the money," said April Daniels.

She is talking about the $2,500 the company that is helping to build the facility has promised residents who leave by the June 1 deadline.

Daniels has already moved but her mobile home needs to go.

Her sister, Summer, plans to sign her mobile home over to that company, Aqua America, but not before taking anything that is worth something.

"Right now I'm tearing my trailer apart to get out of it, because it's too old, get what money we can," said Summer Gruthoff.

Some of the owners of the mobile homes near Jersey Shore are taking them apart, piece by piece in order to sell the scrap metal to offset the costs of moving. While other people refuse to move at all, they will see what happens when June 1 comes and they are still there.

"I have no place to go. I really don't want to go. You can't afford it," said Denise Bliler. She watched as another neighbor's home was hauled away.

In fact, a construction trailer has already been moved in.

Bliler and about a half-dozen of her neighbors plan to stay through the June 1 deadline.

The company that owns the mobile home park has said it hopes those folks will still leave and whatever happens after that will be done within the law.

However, those defiant residents told Newswatch 16 they are not going without a fight.

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