The demolition of what remains from the blighted Lazy Wheels Mobile Home property has begun and while city officials are pleased to see an excavator at work, the slow pace has been frustrating.

“It looks like Lazy Wheels was hit with a hurricane,” Ceres Police Chief Trenton Johnson reported to the Ceres City Council on July 13. “It’s gonna get worse before it betters better.”

Slowing down the work was the effort to strip out all the recyclable materials, such as aluminum siding and copper wiring which was not touched by metal thieves who trespassed onto the property since the park shut down on Nov. 1, 2025. Tenants were ordered to vacate the park and remove their units if they wanted or they would be destroyed. The mess left behind has been nothing short of mind boggling with trash and rubbish strewn around the units.

Property owner Anthony Nowaid told the Courier late last year that he expected the cleanup effort to cost as much as $200,000. Nowaid bought the park from Caltrans. The state bought the park and neighboring parcels west of Ceres High School for right-of-way when the Whitmore freeway interchange was built.

Located along Highway 99 at the Whitmore Avenue northbound onramp, the substandard park has been a community eyesore for decades. The wind down of the park, which was reportedly established in 1947, has been mired in legal wrangling in the past year. In 2010 the city rezoned the Lazy Wheels property for Highway Commercial use. In 2013 the city sought to have the park abated by 2018 but the state has control over mobile home parks and pre-empted city action.

In early 2025 residents of the park called upon the California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA) to sue Nowaid. He had to come up the funds to relocate tenants to new housing. Nowaid sought to have the court withhold a portion of the funds to ensure the privately owned units were removed but he was lost that bid.

Nowaid said he will wants to use the property to develop some type of residential use.