RLE Property Management Cheryl Harvey, office manager defrauds park residents Hampden Maine

In April 2012, my husband and I bought a mobile home located in the Pheasant Hill Trailer Park, which is owned by RLE Property Management. When we contacted the park owners to inform them that we now owned the trailer, their agent at the time, Naomi Gaidosh, and their lawyer, Lawrence Merrill, informed us that the previous owner owed $2,000.00 in past due lot rent and that, according to state law, we were now responsible for paying it to the park.

I'll be honest: We were stupid. Because Mr. Merrill, a lawyer, told us that we were responsible for the previous owner's arrears, we took his word for it. After all, as a lawyer he is licensed by the state and as an officer of the court he isn't supposed make statements that are illegal. We therefore made arrangements to pay it off, which we did.

Fast forward to January 1, 2014. We receive a water bill for over $67 for one month's usage--three times what the bill had been in any previous month. However, I paid it. In February, the bill was back to normal so I thought nothing of it.

Then, on March 1, 2014, I received a water bill for the month of February of over $100! That set off alarm bells. I called our personal handyman and had him come check the pipes inside the trailer. No leak. I then called the park manager, Cheryl Harvey (the previous manager having left) to say that there must be a leak in the pipe outside. She sent a maintenance man who claimed there was a leak under the trailer. Our handyman came back and said that there was no incoming leak--that an outgoing pipe had burst, causing waste water to leak. Waste water does not affect the meter. I explained this to the manager and said they needed to get someone else to come out and look more carefully.

I also started doing research and discovered that the bills she had been providing us since we first moved in were all illegal. The bills state only an amount without any other information. Maine statutes decree that a mobile home park owner must provide a full written disclosure of all fees charged by the park to all residents of the park.

The reason for this is so that residents know that the management is not charging more than the utility provider charges because it is illegal for a landlord (including trailer park owners) to profit from the sale of utilities. Therefore, on March 3, 2014, I contacted the manager again and said that in addition to having the pipes checked again, she needed to start providing me with a full, itemized breakdown of the monthly charges, including per unit charges. She never complied (and hasn't as of this writing, on April 14, 2014).

On April 1, I got another bill for over $67. I called the manager again. She sent someone out again and once again insisted that the leak was our problem. 

Her response was to send me an eviction notice on April 9. The notice is illegal on two counts: 1. It states that "past due rent" is the cause, but we are current on the rent. Therefore it was drafted with false information and it invalid on that score. 2. It is illegal to attempt to evict a tenant over a disputed utility bill.

Since April 9, she has also sent three different people asking to come into the trailer to look for a leak--despite having been told that there is no leak inside, and despite the fact that she has no legal right to do so since we own the trailer. (Her people are allowed under the trailer to inspect any park property, but they cannot come indoors since everything from the outer walls to the the interior of the trailer is our property.)

I have tried on three occasions to reason with her by phone; each time she makes false claims, interrupts me when I rebut them, and generally behaves like someone who knows the law is against them but hopes to bully their opponent into submission. This has been the way with every interaction with these people. I have also sent two typed and four email requests for the bill they are obligated by law to provide. She continues to ignore my requests.

Earlier today I sent her a copy of the statutes governing mobile home parks' requirements and rights to billing for utilities. Parks are required by law to provide written fee schedules. Failure to provide such schedules of fees removes any obligation on the tenant's part to pay the bill.

This company routinely gets away with defrauding its residents. This isn't the only park they own, either; they also own 10 other rental properties in Milford, Bangor, Hamden, Brewer, and Greenbush. They are almost certainly making most of their profit illegally.