Seven families evicted

Notice to move out within 30 days was delivered January 4, 2007 to the tenants that rent space for their seven mobile homes. The property on Equestrian Circle off of IC King Road was sold by Jim Clackston to brother Darwin G. Clackston. “That doesn’t give us enough time to find and arrange to move our entire house to another location and that’s if we can even find one,” one tenant told The Herald. Several of the other families that live there are dumbfounded as to where or how they are going to move to or what they are going to do. One tenant got an estimate of $2,000 to $4,000 to move their 14’ x 70’ mobile home. “I know I don’t have that kind of money, and I don’t think the others here do either, so unless we take a huge loss and are fortunate enough to find a buyer, we’ll have to take a big credit hit and loose our homes” stated one of the tenants. All the tenants that were there on the day of the interview agreed the manor in which they received notice, right after Christmas, was the biggest blow. “Most of us have lived here for years and to just send a certified letter telling us we had 30 days to move our entire house out is what upsets us. Why couldn’t he (Darwin) come to our doors personally and tell us himself, plus the letter was written the day after Christmas,” voiced one of the tenants. A young couple with two kids living there had just recently gotten back together starting to get back on track when they received the bad news. “We’ve just gotten back together and it’s not easy to get on our feet. We recently bought this home from my mother who lived here for years. I’ve been out of work, we’ve had car troubles and now this. I don’t know where we’ll go, if we’re going to have to abandon the trailer or not and how we’re going to get the money needed to move to another place.” “We are desperate, so we are going to have to take a loss on selling our trailer or abandon it I guess,” stated another tenant. Jason Marcoux, a tenant stated, “This was like our own little Mayberry. We know everyone here. I’d go help a neighbor with his car, and he’d come help me with something. Now we’ve lost that too.” Another tenant stated they were hoping to keep their child at the Seymour School, but they are unable to find anyplace in Seymour without restrictions against mobile homes and most of them are in no better shape than the one they’re at. “I’ve searched the internet and the Seymour Herald and every piece of property in Seymour is restricted,” state Leonard. “It’s put us all in a bind.” Darwin Clackston, in a phone conversation with The Herald said he was very concerned for the safety of the tenants as the steep hill above the mobile homes has slide substantially on two separate occasions. “My intention is to straighten the place up and my concern is with the mountain. I am concerned for the health of the people that are living there. That’s my sole concern is their safety and well being. That’s why I’m doing what I’m doing. It has nothing to do with financial gain,” stated Clackston. “I just couldn’t sleep if I knew that any of those people were injured due to a bad rain or earth tremor,” stated Clackston. Clackston said he recently bought the land from his brother due to his health. Clackston said in his letter to the tenants and in the phone interview that he has set aside a substantial amount of money to assist in moving the tenants. “If they (the tenants) contact me, we could get one moving company to move all the units at a decent discount,” said Clackston. “All I know is that we are going to miss this place,” stated Marcoux.