I have been
thinking lately about some of the accounts that I have read about the eagerness
with which some people say that they adopted the full timer life style. Sometimes I hear a different story in between
the lines. I personally did not elect to
be a full timer, it kind of picked me.
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| First Full Time RV |
I was living in
Southern California and got a job in the bay area. I still had kids but was divorced. I
wanted to be in the lives of my children so I kept my house in Southern
California and put my RV in a mobile home park in Bay Area. Older Mobile Home Parks had difficulty
getting new mobile homes to move into the parks so they let RV move in. I would go back and forth spending weekends
in LA and working in SF. This worked
okay for a time and then my ex moved herself and my daughter to Massachusetts
an now there was no reason to stay in LA.
I got rid of the house and stayed in the Bay Area all the time. I continued to live in the RV. During this time I made friends with some of
the residents in the park. My neighbor
behind me was a handyman. I was always fixing
things so Jim and I became friends.
In California if you
let any travel trailer remain in a mobile home park more than a certain number
of days then the travel trailer become like a mobile home and is subject to all
of the protections of a mobile home. In
other words rent control. The solution
that the parks come up with is to make the travel trailers move ever so
often. The travel trailers were required
to remain outside the gates for a number of days and then allow right back into
the same spot they vacated.
This normally is a pain but is doable. My journey to a full timer started on one of
the occasions that Jim was required to move out of the park. Jim had emphysema and over the time
that I lived in the mobile home park he got worse. It got to the point that he was on oxygen all
of the time. In the dead of winter he
was required to move out of the park.
Since he had gotten worse he had not been able to work and money was
tight for him. He could not afford to
stay in a hotel but did not want to leave all his worldly goods alone in his
trailer outside the gates anyway. So he
parked behind the park next to the park fence. At that time of the year the overnight temperatures reach down into the low 30's and high 28's.
The problem was that Jim had no electricity which he needed for his oxygen generation machine and heat. I snaked a long electrical cord across two
spaces and out the fence so that he could run his oxygen machine. The reaction that I got from the park was
totally unexpected. They first removed
the cord while I was away. I retrieve it
and reconnected it. Then the management
came to me demanding that I remove the cord.
I refused and they threatened to evict me. I remained fast and refused to remove the cord. I pay the electric bill and I can give it
away if I want to. The electrical cord stayed but Jim ended up in
the hospital for two weeks. I cannot say
for certain but I believe that it was because he was without heat and oxygen for
the time that the management had removed the cord.
This started the
war with the park. They attempted to
evict me and I fought them in court. I eventually
ended the litigation by agreeing to move in exchange for one year’s free
rent. I thought that I had got a good deal
until it came time to move. It seems that the
attorney for the mobile home park represented all the other parks for miles
around. I was black balled. The only thing that I could do is park on the
street. I wasn't sure that I was going
to stay in the bay area so I didn't want to get an apartment. So I stayed on the streets. It took a while but I found safe places to
park and developed a routine of moving around not staying in one place too
long. I ended up living in the bay area
another four years staying on the streets. This is how I came to be a Full timer.
