I have been so incredibly blessed by this park. By its owners, its management, and by its tenants. They've been so instrumental in my career, and I'm deeply indebted to them.
As an actor in Hollywood, I need a place to be local to the industry here, but also am aware that Los Angeles is one of the most expensive cities in the world to live in. Finding an affordable place, while you have a profession that is super unstable, with good financial years followed by ones with no work and very little income at all, isn't always easy. But this place has afforded me just this.
All around me I have tenants who help pick up my mail while I am travelling, and call me if something seems amiss at my trailer when I am not home. I help pick up their delivered packages when they aren't home, and they get mine. I have those who bring me food when they've made too much, or stop by at the gate to shoot the breeze. There are even a handful of other actors in the park, and we help each other with self-tape auditions! LA isn't always an easy place to make friends, so having neighbors all around you who you can count on is HUGE! Unlike living in an apartment, I know most of my neighbors, as much of trailer life is spent at ground level, where folks are in and out often--especially because the interior of most trailers is pretty tiny and often get stupid hot in the summer.
The management has always been terrific--consistently on-site and managing the plant life, trees, bushes and common areas. Always available, willing to help and friendly. And the owners are three siblings who are second generation owners after their parents left them the park upon their passings. So its been in the family for nearly seventy years, which I find so endearing, The three of them even grew up on the premises! Furthermore, they are hands-on owners, each contributing in their own different ways. Being kindly and totally approachable, but also serving as bad guys when need be. I'm sure that part of the job is not fun, but I do appreciate it, because their diligence is one of the reasons this park has been here as a functioning business for decades.
And look, I hear the gripes. The downsides. The stigma of living in a trailer park. If you look for the negatives, you can always find them. Not just in this park, but in anything. But if you look for the positives, they are always there too.
For me? To live in LA, in a place that I own, and can (reasonably, within HOA rules) decorate and artistically tweak to my liking, without paying an arm and a leg for a land lease, (Because it is different than traditional rent, since you, the owner, are responsible for all maintenance on the abode itself, and that's important to remember and understand this), is a treasure for me. Not having to work excessively at any side jobs while pursuing acting is something many of my peers in the industry cannot attest to. This park and its people, (Owners, Management and Tenants), have given me the freedom to continue to pursue the dream career that I came to LA to do, without putting too much stress into the worries that most people in LA have of working endlessly to cover overhead.
Overhead here is cheap. Sure, I have to turn sideways to walk down my own hallway, and have to sleep in a children's bed because the bedroom isn't large enough for anything bigger, and yes, I hang partially out of the shower when I'm rinsing off, so the floor always gets soaked, and have to get up on the roof and patch the leaks in the old trailer every year when it rains, and the largest water heater I can fit is only ten gallons, which makes showers last only two minutes before they run cold, and in the summer it gets as hot as the innards of a car inside the trailer, even while running the window a/c at full blast. I have to walk to a whole other building to do laundry, and consistently deal with bobcats, spraying felines, peacocks, skunks, black widows, parrots, rats, mice, possums, racoons and even recently, snakes, but you know what? I'll trade all of this comfort for the freedom it provides.
If I wanted a nice air-conditioned place, with indoor parking, and guest spaces, more square footage, space to stretch out, and all the amenities, there are plenty of apartments, condos and houses around to rent or even buy.
But you get what you pay for. And frankly, I get waaay more good stuff at this park than bad. And I get waaaay more than I pay for, and WAAAYYY more than I deserve.
So do I have complaints? Not valid enough to overshadow all of my compliments. These folks here have provided a wonderful community and a piece of freedom that I'll forever owe them for. Finding this place was a needle in a haystack. It may not be Bel-Air, but all the luxuries of Bel-Air come with a cost--just as the lack of luxuries of living in a trailer do. For me, I've chosen the latter, and I'm sure appreciative of Sunland Trailer Park for making that choice much easier. read more
