The Wisconsin Mfd Home Owners Association  encourages you NOT to BUY a manufactured home. The building process, both on-site and in the factories, is about cutting corners—using inferior quality sheathing, cutting boards too short to meet in the center of studs—problems that promote irregular air exchange within a house and which eventually produce growth of mold and excessive heating bills. 

Additional problems:  fraud, misdealing, false statement, improper assembly, illegally based seizure of homes, defective set up, worthless warranties, and suspect consumer protection.  

If you are unfortunate enough to get caught in this malignant Pandora's Box as an unsuspecting consumer, you will find yourself immersed in an endless war that will consume the rest of your life and your life's income. You will get no satisfaction from HUD or even some legislators and state agencies because many have been corrupted by the MH industry—they have been bought off with big money and the heady power of control over millions of victims.

Talk to your local government—for starters

Attend your municipal Board or Council monthly meetings—in groups if possible.  Make your presence known.  Take your complaint or comments in writing, and present them verbally.   Your municipality has direct responsibility for the habitability of your living conditions due to their licensing authority that was granted them from the State of Wisconsin.   Hold them accountable by keeping good documentation and pictures of failures of maintenance.    

Get a copy of your local ordinances and State Statute 704, plus ATCP 125 and 134 (tenancy law) and present this to your Board or Council.   If your municipality is allowing a park owner to ignore inferior living conditions on his property (affecting health and safety--water and sewer, for instance), they can be held liable as well as the park owner.  But you as a Chapter will have to sue them, preferably both, to get anything done about it.

WARNINGS

Also, never buy a used or a new mfd. home WITHOUT hiring your own housing inspector prior to exchange of money.    Never assume upfront that you are getting your money's worth.   Never sign a contract that says you must pay in full prior to delivery.   Insist on paying no more than half the money upfront, and the other half AFTER you have a complete housing inspection done, including the underbelly of your home--before skirting is done--of the plumbing under the sinks and in the bathrooms, the siding for its secure application to the outer walls, etc.   

Withhold at least HALF your money until you are satisfied with set-up.   This is absolutely critical to the safe and long-term duration of your home on its foundation, whether it's on a pad or pilings. Delivery and set up are vital—much can happen between the dealer's lot and your site during transportation.   Make sure you get repairs done within the time frame allowed on your home's warranty.

Most of all, choose a reputable dealer--preferably NOT a park dealer.   It is illegal for any MHP owner/manager to insist you must buy new or used from them to site your home in a Park.   Be prepared to bypass that MHP, or better yet install a home on your own land if you have a lot.   But we warn homebuyers to avoid manufactured housing, and go with modular if possible, because there are too many pitfalls in the manufactured housing industry nationally as well as in any one state.   Even if you watch them like a hawk from day 1, you won't find or see every failure of set up or construction.

We refer you to The Manufactured HomeBuyers Handbook by Wes Johnson 2004 for myriad pitfalls incurred in buying mfd. housing.

 CAMPAIGN OF SHAME BEGINS IN WISCONSIN -  2002

You can help make park landlords accountable, the same way apartment landlords are held accountable to their municipalities.  And yes, both types of landlords own private property. They are both still accountable to observe and enforce local ordinances and state law (each carries equal weight of law), regardless of their private property status.

Get yourself a throwaway camera.  These cost about $10 at discount stores.  Take pictures of the defects in your [new] house and/or lack of park maintenance wherever possible.  Get a copy of your local town, city, or village ordinances from local municipal officials or the Wisconsin League of Municipalities. Highlight the ordinance language pertaining to the neglect and failure of observance or enforcement in your home or park.  If none is available, so state.  See Statute 704 for  duties of Park owners. Compare statute requirements to the living conditions in your park.  If they don't jibe, record these facts and make them public--through WIMHOA or in your local newspaper.

WIMHOA will not use your name publicly if you request, but you must identify yourself to us.  Or you can take credit for your own efforts.   Just send several pictures and a copy of your ordinances to WIMHOA.  We will take it from there. If questions, contact WIMHOA via our web page, email, letter, or phone.    IT'S YOUR CHOICE to be a mouse or stand up for your civil rights.

We need volunteers in any and every capacity, regional At-Large Board Members, and organizers in every MHP across the state.     (Ask for our Constitution and Bylaws.)

• You can help us grow by recruiting your neighbors and friends.
• We provide handouts and assistance in organizing to volunteers.
• Choose your own level of involvement and commitment.

Memberships are our lifeblood -- See the drop-down Contact/Join WIMHOA Main Menu at the top left side of the homepage.

WIMHOA is also looking for fundraising ideas and people to carry them out. Contact us if you are willing to help us raise money (i.e., garage sales, catalog sales, house parties), find a grant, and/or visit your neighbors and ask them to join. Numbers = Group strength.

Your support will ensure that you are counted as part of our united front against the corruption in the National Manufactured Housing Program.   No information from your membership form will be shared without your direct consent except in WIMHOA's occasional advocacy efforts to grow our organization.

 LOBBYING ACTIVITIES — letters, email, visits, phone calls

WIMHOA always needs community residents who are willing to make appointments and visit their legislators' offices. Don't be unhappy if you get a staffer—they have the legislator's ear.    Always take printed information to leave with them after you've discussed your issues.    It helps to know Bill numbers or other identifying numbers of legislation if your topic is currently in committee or on the floor.    The legislative staffer can tell you this.    Never threaten a legislator, and be polite even if you don't get what you want.   You may have to work with that same legislative office in the future! Remember—business has well paid lobbyists at the Capitol, but no one is representing consumers unless you and I do it as representatives of WIMHOA!

Feel free to communicate with State Aagencies as well as legislators when you disagree with current policy or note omissions in policy.   Get more than one signature on any communications or petition you circulate, but if you cannot find anyone else, just sign your own name.   Being a WIMHOA member carries more clout, since you are part of a group.    At the very least, feel free to market yourself and your Chapter as members of WIMHOA.   Invite others to view this site, and encourage your neighbors to join us and empower themselves through their own and our efforts!   Help us help you become a major force in Wisconsin's MH consumer future.

The only things legislators care about are money and votes.   We rarely deliver money, but we can deliver votes—provided you help register voters in local MHPs and get them to the polls.   We need to promise a legislator a specific number of votes as a trade-off for legislation that we homeowners need must have.    Check out the www.census.gov to find number of voters in your district.