Maria Ceballos was getting ready for bed at her home in the Berkeley Village Mobile Home Park last week when her son hurried into her room.
His car had been towed.
The reason, Ceballos found out, was that the required permit sticker sat visible on the car’s dashboard — but not affixed to the windshield.
“The tow driver was pretty aggressive,” Ceballos said in Spanish through a translator. “He said, ‘Why don’t you put this (expletive) sticker on the windshield like you’re supposed to?’”
When the tow company eventually brought the car back, Ceballos said it was damaged.
“I feel like I can’t even sleep because I have to watch over our cars to make sure nothing happens,” said Maria Gonzalez, another resident of the Adams County mobile home park who had a car towed from her own driveway, through an interpreter.
The experiences in Berkeley Village are hardly exceptions for mobile home residents across the Front Range. Towing companies have been running wild in those communities for years, homeowners and housing advocates said, towing cars for minor violations or, sometimes, for no explicit reason. Lawmakers are hoping a beefed-up towing task force will more closely regulate these companies — and further legislation may be on the way.
“I’m not aware of any park where residents are not harassed over this,” said Rep. Edie Hooton, a Boulder Democrat who spearheaded the 2021 towing bill.
A parking sign warning of towing is visible in the Berkeley Village Mobile Home Park on Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2021. Residents allege towing companies have been unfairly targeting them for parking violations and towing them during the early morning hours before 5 a.m.
“They don’t warn you, they just tow”
When it comes to parking in mobile home communities, the property owner gets to decide everything. Unlike other residential streets, the roads in these parks are considered private property.
The designation gives park owners the opportunity to put into place all sorts of rules that residents argue can be arbitrary or inconsistently enforced.
Tom Macurdy remembers a time in his Lafayette mobile home park when people were allowed to park on both sides of the street without issue. But now the park has a rule that outlaws street parking after 8 p.m., with the justification that the roadways need to be clear for fire lanes.
The park will rent residents a space down the street for a fee, Macurdy said. The other option: park outside the community and walk all the way in. Otherwise, prepare to get towed.
“How in the hell do streets change at night?” Macurdy said, adding that he’s seen service vehicles such as furnace or refrigerator repair trucks towed for violating the rule. “They don’t suddenly shrink at 8 p.m.”
Gonzalez, the Berkeley Village resident, said the towing issue is simple: “They take your cars because they want to.”
She had just gotten a new car two months ago, and hadn’t had the chance to acquire the required permit sticker, she said. A week later, she woke up at 3 a.m. to find the tow truck hooking her car up to take away. It was sitting in her driveway.
“This is why this park is like this,” she recalled the driver telling her. “Because of trash people like you.”
Maria Ceballos grabs her parking pass as she discusses the towing practices in Berkeley Village Mobile Home Park on Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2021.
Gonzalez has had to institute a rule for her home: visitors need to leave by 10 p.m. Otherwise they’re at risk.
“You’re always worried, if you have visitors, how much money you’ll have to pay to get their car off the lot if they’re towed,” said Ceballos, the Berkeley Village resident. “It’s really frustrating.”
Cars will often be towed in the middle of the night, making it even harder for owners to object, said Cesiah Guadarrama, associate state director for 9to5 Colorado, an economic justice organization, and a Berkeley Village resident.
“The rules are so arbitrary,” she said. “They don’t warn you, they just tow.”
Shawn Lustigman, Berkeley Village’s owner, said he doesn’t know how the towing company operates, only that he has an agreement with them to tow cars.
“I don’t know when they come and when they leave,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever talked directly to them.”
The parking issue comes down to safety, Lustigman said. The roads have to be clear so fire trucks can access the homes in case of an emergency.
“I don’t want my tenants to lose $300,” he said. “I don’t make money on it. I’m trying to keep my tenants happy.”
Colorado Auto Recovery, the towing company contracted by Berkeley Village, received 23 consumer complaints between July 2020 and June 30, 2021, according to Public Utilities Commission records. In two cases, regulators found the company to be not in compliance with the law, with $235.45 returned to customers.
The company also has an F rating with the Better Business Bureau, with 19 complaints closed in the past three years and 11 this past year. Company representatives did not respond to requests for comment.
Maria Ceballos, left, and Maria Gonzalez, right, discuss the towing practices in Berkeley Village Mobile Home Park on Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2021.
Lack of notice and inconsistent enforcement
The towing rules — and subsequent tows — are a common issue at parks around Colorado, housing advocates say.
One piece is inconsistent enforcement. A certain parking rule might exist, but it’s not normally enforced, leading residents to believe “it’s not a big deal,” said Michael Peirce, project manager for the Colorado Coalition of Manufactured Home Owners.
“And then all of a sudden they’re getting towed,” he said.
Someone may have a car parked slightly on the grass. Or a car will be parked two-and-a-half feet from a driveway entry instead of the required three feet.
“There’s this general issue of a lack of charitable notice,” Peirce said. “Someone could easily move the car — all it would take is someone knocking on the door and saying, ‘Hey, your car is parked poorly or it’s blocking someone. But no notice is given. It’s a flat-out tow.”
Part of it may simply be a power trip, said David Valleau, mobile home initiative lead with the Colorado Poverty Law Project.
“It’s another way to bully and intimidate residents,” he said.
Tows are not just inconveniences — they can be financially devastating to residents.
Gonzalez said she had visitors in town from New Mexico last year, and they were hit with a $290 bill for having their car on the street. Others reported charges of more than $300 — even if the car sat at the lot for mere minutes.
“This can very quickly throw a person’s financial capacities out of whack,” Peirce said. “Being hit with a towing bill may mean you can’t make rent that month or can’t make some other bill.”
Hooton, the Boulder lawmaker, recognized these issues during the 2021 legislative session when she spearheaded the Vehicle Towing Consumer Protection bill. HB21-1283 will soon add five new members to the state’s towing task force, including a member of the mobile homeowner community and a representative from the Colorado Attorney General’s Office.
The bill also requires a sunset review of the Public Utilities Commission’s regulation of towing carriers and will look at whether a dispute resolution program similar to one instituted to address complaints between mobile home park owners and residents could be beneficial.
“I want to make sure park owners or managers aren’t getting kickbacks for these tows,” Hooton said. “We’d like to see much stricter guidelines on what qualifies as a non-consensual tow.”
This content was originally published here.