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Isabel Lopez has lived across from the Stockton Park Village mobile home park, located at 1914 Auto Ave., for years. She watched with a smile on her face as an abatement cleanup took place.
The San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office, along with other agencies, conducted 35 dump runs and collected 196,180 pounds of trash from the mobile home park last month, according to data released last week.
“I feel very happy honestly because before it was such an awful mess,” Lopez said in Spanish. “…Other people would come to throw away trash, it was like a dump site and there was a lot of animals.”
The cleanup effort happened after a court order was updated by a San Joaquin County Superior Court judge to allow the county to abate the nuisance conditions, sheriff’s officials said in a social media post.
Last year, 183 calls were made for service at the park and multiple operations had been conducted at the mobile home park regarding trash, rodent and insect infestation, and open sewage, said the Sheriff’s Office post.
Lopez said the trash conditions caused rats to flee into her home.
‘Then they started lighting it on fire’
While San Joaquin County inmates cleaned trash from the property and machines were being utilized for the cleanup, 10-year mobile park resident Michael Cooper watched from his tiny rectangle shed.
He said he was glad that the abatement was happening, and that he had even helped crews clean.
“Before they cleaned it up there was a dump pile 10 feet high … then they started lighting it on fire,” 60-year-old Cooper said.
He said the mobile home park wasn’t always filled with trash and people allegedly taking drugs; it was an enjoyable and quiet place to reside.
“When we moved in here, it was very nice,” Cooper said.
He was one of the few residents allowed to stay on the property because many trespassers had been forced to leave when the cleanup began.
However, he said he was going to leave the location since the water had been shut off.
According to the Sheriff’s Office, 57 inmate works assisted in the cleanup and 200 tires were recycled.
