You leave the Collier County most people know upon entering the Diamond Shores trailer park on Port-au-Prince Road, just east of Collier Boulevard near Marco Island.
People in the trailers live in varying degrees of filth, making you think you’ve entered a Third World country.
Earlier this week, Collier code enforcement officials bombarded the park to document all the violations. They will be taking the owners to court if improvements are not made soon.
There are people in the park who pay $600 a month for trailers where the bathrooms don’t work, roofs are about to collapse, stairs are torn up and shoddy wiring has caused fires. There also are broken windows and screens, abandoned cars and empty beer bottles scattered all over the complex.
“I keep on wondering how can people live like this?” said Mary Trejo, a Cape Coral resident who was visiting Diamond Shores on Wednesday.
Three families said they are fleeing the complex because they are fed up with the situation.
Anissa Sanchez, 21, was moving her things out of her trailer with the help of her mother, Emily Maldanodo, on Wednesday.
Sanchez said she lived in the trailer with her boyfriend and sister. Her sister moved out several months ago because she was pregnant, and Sanchez is now moving to Naples Manor.
A tour of her trailer revealed broken windows, singe marks on an area where faulty wiring started a fire in the kitchen, torn off paneling on the outside of the structure and sagging ceilings in both bedrooms that make it appear as if the roof could collapse at any minute.
Photo by LEXEY SWALL, Naples Daily News
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Water damage has caused holes in the ceiling of the trailer where Anissa Sanchez, bottom right, has been living since the summer of 2005 at the Diamond Shores mobile home community on Port Au Prince in East Naples. Sanchez is moving out of the trailer because she has had three electrical fires and numerous other problems that the owner of the trailer has not fixed despite her complaints. Collier County code enforcement stated that Sanchez's trailer is one of the worst off in the Diamond Shores community.
The roof in one bedroom did collapse once and she had to fix it herself because the landlord wouldn’t help, she said. That bedroom smelled of mildew and mold Wednesday.
Sanchez also said she got no support from the owners of the property when she complained about the trailer.
“They said if I didn’t like it I could move out,” she said.
Code Enforcement Officer Jeff Letourneau toured Sanchez’s trailer Wednesday afternoon. He called it one of the worst he had seen at the park.
According to Sanchez, the owners are discouraging tenants from cooperating with code enforcement. They were told the rent will go up if they cooperate with the county.
The owners of Diamond Shores, David Steinberg and Al Botino, could not be reached for comment Wednesday. County Spokeswoman Lisa Koehler said neither of the men live in the area.
Across the street from where Sanchez lives, Adrianna Montoya is also getting out and moving to Naples. She is abandoning a trailer that has a toilet and shower that don’t work.
“The bathroom doesn’t work, we can’t use it,” Montoya said in Spanish, with Sanchez serving as interpreter.
A bedroom ceiling next to the nonworking bathroom is also about to collapse, so Montoya and her family all sleep in the other bedroom, which has a second bathroom.
Monique Fayette, 22, and her boyfriend, Jay Shaffer, 28, are moving to Bonita Springs.
Fayette said the shower didn’t work for a period of time in their home, and they also have holes in the wall.
“From what I understand, it’s a lot worse for some other people who live here,” she said.
Fayette said they live in Diamond Shores because of the cheap rent, but they’re tired of the place.
“Now that we’ve got our feet on the ground we want to live someplace nicer,” she said.
Irina Yakovleva said she had problems with rats coming into her trailer.
Photo by LEXEY SWALL, Naples Daily News
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Jeff Letourneau, left, a Collier County code enforcement officer, talks with Anissa Sanchez, a renting resident of Diamond Shores, after posting a notice of violation on her trailer Wednesday afternoon. Collier County code enforcement canvassed the trailer park this week to document violations that exist within many of the buildings on the property and will fine the owners until the improvements are made.
“Rats are always trying to get into my house,” she said. “I don’t leave food in the fridge.”
The food attracts the rats, she said.
Trejo was helping to tow a car that had broken down inside the complex. One of the men involved in the operation lived in Diamond Shores, but didn’t speak English.
Trejo said the man had all sorts of problems with his trailer. But after engaging him in a conversation she shook her head and said he didn’t want to be interviewed or give his name.
“He said they’re working on the air conditioning, but except for that everything’s fine,” Trejo said. “I know it’s not fine. But he’s afraid of getting in trouble.”
Resident William Arevalo did agree to talk with Trejo serving as interpreter. He said a lot of people have problems with rats, and he had a neighbor who left after her kids were bitten by them.
The mobile home park was bad before the hurricane, and got worse after Wilma hit, Arevalo said.
People in the complex have no air conditioning, refrigerators don’t work and many have bug or rat problems, Trejo said.
“Little kids run around here,” Trejo said, pointing to broken bottles, debris and a lake that had garbage such as beer bottles in the water. “It’s just not safe. I’ve thought of complaining even though I don’t live here.”
Letourneau was the last code enforcement officer within Diamond Shores Wednesday. He was putting notices on mobile homes letting people know their structure violated county codes.
The county faces a major challenge with Diamond Shores, he said.
“If we come down too hard on the owners they’ll just shut it down and all these people will have to find new homes,” he said. “But at the same time, we can’t let this continue as it is.”
Koehler said the owners are now racking up thousands of dollars in fines each day. The county began looking into the park because of complaints from residents.
“We’ve been doing inspections there for years and there have been a lot of problems,” Koehler said.
Despite repeated inspections, the park has gotten worse, he said. The county will review all its legal options and might look into filing criminal charges if repairs are not made, Koehler said.
Ironically, this mobile home park was originally where the Federal Emergency Management Agency was going to install trailers after Hurricane Wilma. They didn’t do that because the park wasn’t above the county’s flood line, Koehler said.
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