A consumer fraud lawsuit has been filed against the owners and operators of a mobile home park on Tucson’s south side over its “extremely dangerous, unreliable, and overloaded” electrical system.
Residents of Palo Verde Mobile Home Park, near East Alvord Road and South Alvernon Way, have had to deal with regular power outages, creating dangerous conditions due to a lack of access to air conditioning, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes said in a news release.
“Arizonans are being placed in repeated extremely dangerous circumstances while their electricity is out and their landlord fails to fix it. It may feel like there’s no one to call to help, but my office can and will intervene to protect consumers when landlords fail to live up to their end of the bargain,” Mayes said in a written statement. “A/C and electricity outages in Arizona aren’t just dangerous, they’re deadly.”
The lawsuit follows a demand letter Mayes’ office sent to the park owners. The lawsuit says the owners of Palo Verde Mobile Home Park, Landon Asset Management, which owns 18 homes in the park, and Landon Management Services PC, the park’s property management company, violated the state’s consumer fraud act.
It says the park failed to inform residents that its electrical system was “outdated and insufficient to power basic appliances and air conditioning systems.”
“As a result, Palo Verde Mobile Home Park residents have been left exposed to risks of electric fires and regularly lose power to air condition their homes for hours at a time during extreme heat spikes,” the release said.
In Pima County, for example, mobile home residents make up 10% of all housing, but account for 30% of heat related deaths, the release said.
It said frequent power outages make mobile homes especially difficult to cool.
