STOCKTON, Calif. — Weeks after clearing out unlawful residents from the Stockton Park Village, officials with the San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office began cleaning up the troublesome Stockton mobile home park on Thursday.
The clean-up was the start of a multi-day, multi-agency effort to clear trash and debris from the mobile home park days after a judge signed a court order allowing the county to abate nuisance conditions at the mobile home park on Auto Avenue.
The abatement, which included the use of several dumpsters, tow trucks and shovels, was a move that some neighbors had been long waiting for.
"I'm glad they're doing this," said Auto Avenue resident Andreus Wilson as he watched dump trucks make back-and-forth runs from the mobile home park to the dump Thursday. "People can come down this street peacefully and don't have to look at a bunch of garbage like it's some kind of dump. They got more garbage here than they got at the dump."
In the past year alone, the sheriff's office received 183 calls for service at the park, according to a Facebook post shared by officials Thursday.
"Conditions at the Stockton Park Village mobile home park located at 1914 Auto Drive in east Stockton has increasingly become unsafe, unsanitary, and hazardous," the sheriff's office said on Facebook. "By abating this property, we expect the calls for service to drastically decrease, allowing Patrol resources to focus on other areas of need."
Authorities said that in the past, multiple operations have been conducted at the location regarding trash, rodent and insect infestations, open sewage and more.
Wilson says he has witnessed the mobile home park deteriorating in recent years as people began unlawfully living there.
"Everything used to be nice and clean here, until you let one come, then another one comes, then another one, then another one," said Wilson. "I've been living over here, around the corner, for about 40-something years and I have never seen it like this before."
Officials with the sheriff's office said that the court order included names of people who were legally allowed to stay at the mobile home park.
In addition to clearing out trash, debris and illegally parked trailers, workers are also slated to install barriers to prevent any more unauthorized access to the mobile home park.
