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Author: Marti Maguire; Staff Writer Edition: SouthEast SMITHFIELD -- Single- and double-wides that are now home to weeds and vermin will soon find a new home at the county dump, thanks to a project that Johnston County commissioners adopted Monday. The board set aside $15,000 from fees from new mobile homes for a project that will move abandoned mobile homes when the owners can't afford to remove them. The project will have a six-month trial period. Johnston is joining a half-dozen other counties with campaigns to rid their landscapes of unsightly, sometimes decaying and overgrown mobile homes. In Johnston, development has brought the plight of abandoned mobile homes to the forefront, along with some prodding from representatives of the mobile home industry bent on improving the image of their product. Commissioners' chairwoman Cookie Pope said newer suburbs highlight the blight of dilapidated old homes, creating a bad impression for developers and homebuyers who will judge the county by its first impression. "When company comes, they look at your yard first," Pope said. Planning Director Steve Finn said his staff has fielded complaints from homebuilders and buyers who stumble across abandoned mobile homes, sometimes in wooded areas. "With land being cleared for new subdivisions and new buildings, more mobile homes and other buildings are being discovered," Finn said. Planning staff will identify hardship cases and hire a contractor to cart off the homes. Finn said he knows of several cases in which elderly people or their children cannot afford to remove a mobile home. He'll also use the pilot program to figure out how many such homes exist in Johnston, so that the board can decide whether to expand the program or scrap it after six months. "We just don't know the extent of what's out there," Finn said. "We're in observation mode." Inspector Phyllis Hicks has seen decaying mobile homes with brush growing through them wedged between subdivisions. They don't just look bad; they can become a breeding ground for rats and other pests that travel to newer homes. "There's one you can't even see for all the overgrowth," Hicks said. "There's definitely a need." Jimmy Starling, who sells mobile homes in Pine Level, pushed for the board to also consider waiving fees at the county landfill for people who need to dispose of mobile homes, particularly those built before uniform codes were adopted in 1976. Starling said he and others in his industry want to rid the countryside of these abandoned older homes, which give passers-by a negative image of mobile homes. "You need that incentive," said Starling, a member of the N.C. Manufactured Housing Institute board of directors. The institute has kicked in up to $5,000 for each of three pilot projects in other counties. Next month, it will consider whether to help out Johnston financially. Commissioners' Vice Chairman Wade Stewart voted against the measure. If the county removes mobile homes, he said, then people with traditional homes will start asking for help. "I don't know what the end will be," he said.
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