Property owner Anthony Nowaid faces the monumental task of cleaning up the shambled remnants of his Lazy Wheels Mobile Home Park.

As of Nov. 1, tenants were ordered to vacate the park, which abuts the eastern flank of Highway 99 north of the Whitmore Avenue and has been a serious eyesore in the community for decades. The mess left behind has been nothing short of mind boggling with trash and rubbish strewn around many of the units, some which have been stripped of aluminum siding and copper wiring. Some of the units were haphazardly added onto without permits.

“They left a mess behind and whatever they couldn’t take, they destroyed,” said Nowaid.

Nowaid, who is an out-of-town owner, estimates that clean-up could cost him as much as $200,000. 

“That is going to be a big, big challenge (with cleanup), just not an easy thing but it’s going to be easier than kicking these people out,” Nowaid told the Courier on Monday.

Nowaid said he’s been playing a “cat and mouse game” with trespassers and squatters. He hired workers to board up the units only to see a continuous cycle of breaking and entering; and has a “couple of guys that go in and check it day and night.”

On his next trip to Ceres, he’s vowing to make citizen’s arrests on anyone caught on his property to “send a message” to others. He expects he’ll have to get Ceres Police involved in ridding his property of the criminal element that has been squatting on his land.

Former tenants are being given until the end of the month to remove any housing units they own if they wish to keep them but Nowaid said they have no value and aren’t worth the expense of moving. That means he’s on the hook to begin demolishing the units and hauling off debris – something he hopes to start on Jan. 1. He also vowed to sue specific individuals who helped destroy the place.

The wind down of the park, which has reportedly been in Ceres since 1947, has been mired in legal wrangling in the past year.

Earlier this year 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 remains bitter about state policies that cost him untold tens of thousands of dollars as a property owner. He claims the state Housing and Community Development Department, which regulates mobile home parks, found health and safety violations with some units that needed to be corrected within 90 days but informed Nowaid that he was responsible to enforce the action. Nowaid said HCD told residents that he could evict those who didn’t correct violations. After hiring an attorney to process evictions, COVID occurred with state placing a moratorium on evictions for failing to pay rent.

Residents learned they couldn’t be evicted for failing to pay trailer park space rents, but because the tenants didn’t remedy their violations, HCD revoked Nowaid’s permit to operate the park. He alleged the state agency told them they didn’t have to pay rent.

“The problem is that 45 of them didn’t pay rent and most of them didn’t pay (for utilities) at least one year prior to utilities being disconnected.”

Eventually Nowaid shut the power off because rents weren’t being paid and he couldn’t afford paying the park’s electrical bills of $9,000 to $10,000 per month. The state considered Nowaid to be a utility supplier who didn’t have the authority to terminate service.

Tenants Ray and Heather Hayes told the Courier in April that electricity service stopped on June 2, 2023 and that they sought legal remedies with CRLA.

The Lazy Wheels property was rezoned in 2010 when the state purchased it and neighboring parcels west of Ceres High School as part of the reconfiguration of the freeway interchange at Whitmore Avenue. Caltrans bought the property for right-of-way. After the interchange was completed, Caltrans sold the excess property to Nowaid in March 2013.

In 2013 the city sought to have the park abated by 2018.

Nowaid said he will be working with the city to find a new use for the property but a new mobile home park won’t be considered.