JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A local disabled veteran at the center of a dispute over outrageously high water bills said the new owners of the Three Seasons Mobile Home Park removed her latest unusually high bill.
Kelley O’Neil said the new park owners, Oak Wood Properties, have removed her October water charge of $1735.88.
“They took the water charges off, but I still got no explanation as to why they were there in the first place,” O’Neil said.
O’Neil paid Moore Enterprises — the old owners of the mobile home park off Collins Road on Jacksonville’s Westside — more than $2,200 under the threat of eviction back in September.
As News4JAX has been reporting, Moore Enterprises has been under investigation before for overcharging mobile home tenants, for water tenants say they did not use.
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News4JAX has also learned Oak Wood Properties is preparing to install new safeguards to ensure water meter accuracy.
“I spoke with the manager there at Oakwood property, she told me that they’re going to put in some new technology so that they can monitor the water usage,” O’Neil said.
When asked if she was satisfied with that, O’Neil said “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
O’Neil is not only skeptical. She said she was still angry about the $2,200 she paid the former park owners Moore Enterprises, after they threatened to evict her.
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While Moore Enterprises claimed she had a leak, a city of Jacksonville inspection revealed that she did not use that amount of water, which is enough to fill three Olympic-sized swimming pools.
“After having three plumbers, two city workers, and JEA employees come out here and look at the meters, and still no explanation at all,” O’Neil said.
Whistleblower TeriAnne Werner, who worked for Moore Enterprises in 2018 and 2019 as their property manager, told News4JAX in September that she’s willing to testify in court that at least 10 other families were wrongfully charged for water during her tenure.
She said while working for the company, she discovered that some of the water meters hadn’t been read in years. She also said some of the meters were malfunctioning.
Instead of fixing the problem, Werner said Moore Enterprises kept collecting thousands of dollars from low-income tenants.
“What they’re doing is wrong. And when I ended up being asked to leave, I told them that, you know, it’s just completely wrong, that we know what’s going on. But you choose to still try to charge these people and collect it knowing that most of them don’t have the money to go through the court for eviction,” Werner told News4JAX back in September.
The News4JAX I-TEAM learned Moore Enterprises was under investigation in Ohio for similar allegations, but the state agency told us they didn’t have jurisdiction to take any action against the company there.
The State Attorney’s Office is still deciding whether they will pursue criminal action against the company.
“Yeah, I think the State’s Attorney’s Office should look into it and find out you know, what’s going on and whether or not it’s something that was criminal or what because we have no explanation,” O’Neil said.
O’Neil said she has hired a lawyer and is taking legal action against Moore Enterprises to recover the more than $2,200 she paid them under the threat of eviction in September.
Moore Enterprises, based in Irving Texas, did not return our phone calls Wednesday to comment on this story.
Oak Wood Properties said that in addition to the new meter system being installed, they are going to start repaving the roads and making other community improvements.