City, mobile home park in legal battle over lawn flooding
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — You may have heard that home is where the heart is, but for one Indianapolis family, home is where the water is.
The east side homeowners said whenever it rains even a little, their front lawn is covered in several inches of water. And they said the problem began when new neighbors started building.
If you look at Michelle Humphries’ front yard alongside old photos of the property, it is almost impossible to know it is the same place. Humphries said starting four or five years ago, one half of her front lawn began flooding any time it rained.
Humphries and the city of Indianapolis said the flooding issues happened after improvements were made to the mobile home park next to her property.
“Shiloh (Estates) has put a fence up, and all the posts are concreted into the drain and it won’t go out,” said Humphries. “It’s blocked, so it backs up our yard.”
She showed I-Team 8 to where the water is supposed to drain out.
“This is where the water from my yard is supposed to come out and go on down the side of Shortridge and through this pipe, but it’s not flowing like it used to; it used to gush out through there,” she said.
Humphries said she has called the city many times, but her yard is still a pond.
“Nobody else cares,” Humphries said. “It makes us feel useless that nobody wants to help us. We love the east side and it just seems like nobody wants to help anybody.”
A spokesman for the Department of Business and Neighborhood Services said the city has been doing what it can to get the trailer park owners to make things right: Three notices of violation of city code have been sent to the trailer park since August 2017. The city said the trailer park did not fix the issue, so they took legal action and filed a complaint in April.
I-Team 8 went to get answers from the owners of the mobile home park. The company that owns Shiloh Estates is located in Littleton, Colorado. After multiple calls, their Indianapolis attorney called us back. He declined our request for an interview but shared their latest court filings, which deny the company violated city code. The court documents also state the company claims the drain is illegally located on their property.
The case is still making its way through court. There is nothing more the Humphries can do while the legal proceedings continue between the city and the owner of the mobile home park.
If you have a similar problem, contact Indianapolis Business and Neighborhood Services, or call I-Team 8 at 317-956-8850.