Lazy Day Trailer Park residents evicted
About 24 families living at the Lazy Day Mobile Home Trailer Park were served eviction notices on April 14.
According to the eviction letter shared with the Hungry Horse News, people must have their trailers removed by Oct. 18, though the owners of the park have been given financial incentives to move out sooner.
If trailer owners move or sign over the title to the trailer to the park owners by July 18, they would receive a $10,000 payment. If they do the same by Sept. 18, they’d receive $5,000.
If they wait until the Oct. 18 deadline, they will get nothing. The October date is a few days after the six-month notice required by state law.
The property, according to Flathead County tax records, is owned by 2155 Columbia Falls LLC, which in turn, is owned by Freehouse Capital Partners, whose principal is Zach Ware of Whitefish.
Ware did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the future of the site once the trailers are removed. Freehouse Capital, according to its website, is a real estate investment firm
The Park is located off Highway 2 in Columbia Falls at the corner of Meadow Lake Boulevard.
Residents, who declined to give their names because of the sensitive nature of the situation, were already trying to find places to live.
One man said he was looking at a trailer park as far away as Olney. He said he moved in the park about nine years ago when longtime Columbia Falls business owner Dick Mitsch owned it. Mitsch kept the lot rents low and everything was great for a few years. But then Mitsch died in 2019 and the trailer park went through a couple of different owners. Lot rent prices went up, too, from about $275 a month to $650 today.
The park has problems, too, with its septic and water systems, he noted. He said he was hoping to save up enough to buy a house, but that doesn’t seem likely now.
Another woman, who also declined to have her name used, have two children. She and her husband both work two jobs, but they’ve built everything they owned on savings and cash, including their trailer.
“I thought I was doing a good thing (avoiding credit cards),” she said.
Her trailer is a 1985 model, but they recently remodeled it with new siding and it looks good, but she said she’s not sure they’ll be able to move it, even if there’s another trailer park to go to, because many trailer parks won’t take older models.
“A lot of people in the park have no choice but to leave their trailers,” she said.
The trailer park is home to several families with kids — at least a dozen kids live there, she could count off the top of her head.
She said if push comes to shove, they could live in a camper at their in-laws house until they find a place.
“We’ll have to start all over,” she said.
Another woman found herself in a similar predicament. She is a widow and has a child at home.
She has a good job in Columbia Falls, but not enough money to move. She noted that it cost $6,000 to move a trailer, if a person can even find a park that will take it.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she said.