JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A disabled veteran who turned to the News4JAX I-TEAM earlier this month after she was threatened with eviction by her landlord if she didn’t pay a $2,200 water bill, said she just received a new outrageously high water bill from the mobile home park.
Stan and Kelly ONeil banged on the door of the Three Seasons Mobile Home Park off Collins Road on Wednesday to demand answers from management after receiving a September water bill for $1,734.88.
“This is ridiculous, there’s no way in hell I used that much water,” Kelly ONeil said. “What I want to know is does their JEA bill reflect the amount of water I’m being charged for, for the last three months?”
Kelly ONeil already paid the mobile home park more than $2,200 for water for the months of July and August, after they threatened to evict her. She now wants the $2,200 she paid back and refuses to pay the latest bill.
“They are really making life miserable for my daughter, she’s a 100 percent disabled veteran, somebody out there needs to help us,” Stan ONeil said.
Right after Kelly went to management to ask about her bill, the mobile home park sent their meter reader over to double-check her monthly usage.
The water meter reader read the meter in front of the News4JAX I-TEAM, and said Kelly ONeil only used a little more than 7 gallons of water this month.
“The last time I read it was 550.0, and now it’s 550.1 That’s just up one cubic foot,” said Brandon, the meter reader.
The mobile home park pays one water bill to JEA and bills its tenants individually, relying on the water meters’ reading for each mobile home.
“After I read them, I send them to the managers and when they put them in the system, that’s it, the system calculates everything else, that’s all I know,” Brandon said.
This disabled veteran wants to know why she was forced to pay $2,200 before, and also wonders if laws are being broken or if her readings have been incorrect all along.
“The trailer park is not allowed to charge us any more for the water than JEA would charge, so is my money going to pay JEA for this amount of water leakage? I don’t know,” Kelly said.
Moore Enterprises, which owns Three Seasons Mobile Home Park, was under investigation for similar complaints at a mobile home park in Ohio, and we’ve talked to other tenants who allege similar complaints.
Three Seasons lawyers said they are taking this matter seriously and are currently identifying a third party to investigate. Lawyers said Three Seasons is willing to resubmit any payments made back to ONeil if the issue is on their end.
Three Seasons management is not threatening to evict ONeil, this time.
News4JAX is waiting to hear back from the City of Jacksonville Office of Consumer Affairs, which is also looking into these unusually high water bills.