Mobile Home Tenants Claim Busted Water Line Is Putting Their Health At Risk.
LAS CRUCES, Nm. – Mobile home tenants claim a busted water line and their landlord’s apathy are putting their health at risk.
Mobile home tenants say they’ve got three problems: a broken water line, a broken sewer pipe just yards away and a landlord who won’t return their phone calls telling them if it’s safe to take a shower or wash their clothes.
It’s happening at Lou’s Mobile Home Park in the 5000-block of Doa Ana road. Eddie Acosta says the smell and the mosquitoes build up inside Lou’s Mobile Home Park thanks to an overflowing septic tank and a broken water line. “It really does anger us. My parents are angry, I’m angry. I have my son here everyday.”
His biggest fear is that fresh water and septic waste could be mixing. “My dad’s been sick in the stomach and now we’re possibly thinking what if it’s the water?” The park’s septic company says it’s been manually pumping the broken tank for 8 months, but landlord Leo Clear would not admit there is a problem.
Acosta went on to say, “He’s known about my sewer coming up for months. My mom’s been calling him for months. It goes on, the tenants are afraid, but now that we’ve gotten together as a whole to take care of the problem we feel a lot stronger against him.”
County spokesman Jess Williams says this is a civil matter between the tenants and their landlord and if the New Mexico Environment Department recommends any safety changes, the state will enforce those. The NMED took samples of the water and should have resultsFriday morning on whether or not the water going into the homes has any contaminants.
“We’re actually just wondering if your water’s been contaminated, which is what we don’t want. We have our kids, we drink the water, we shower in it.” Williams said.
A spokeswoman with the NMEDsays the owner of Lou’s Mobile Home Park has been issued two citations for the malfunctioning septic tank. She also says he can either fix the problems voluntarily or he will be facing two-thousand dollars in fines everyday starting sometime next week.
