Jill Roberts

My name is Jill Roberts. I own a home in Ridgeview Manufactured Home Community in Lockport, NY. With the previous owners, there were full time office hours and on-site maintenance. As I live alone, it was important to know I could get help if needed, or in an emergency.

Jill stands in front of a blue home. She is wearing a yellow and white striped shirt and looking to the left of the camera.

Now, under Cook Properties, the property manager is based over an hour away and is rarely here. There is no office, and maintenance is sparse. There is little to no communication from Cook to Ridgeview.

The roads are riddled with potholes. Cook promised us new paving about a year ago. What we got was a terrible, small patch job. It's grown dangerous since then. Any residents trying to get their mail have to walk an obstacle course with ruts, potholes and broken speed bumps.

As I write this, I have raw sewage sitting at the bottom of my sewer trap vent pipe. I emailed the property manager four months ago. She said she'd get maintenance to look at it "ASAP". There is still sewage at the bottom! I hate to even go in the backyard knowing there's raw sewage right in that pipe. Given the state of our ancient water and sewage systems, I constantly worry. I won't drink the tap water here and don’t like to stand under the shower anymore.

We continually hear that fixes to these and hazards are "not in the budget". At the same time, Cook continues to buy more parks and build brand new mega-communities. They demand rent increases from us, yet do nothing to address our living conditions.

Predatory owners have to be held accountable! We are not financial livestock! All of us, including the elderly, disabled people, and children, deserve to live in a decent, HEALTHY, and SAFE community.