Closing was today, and officers of the board signed the mortgage papers that put this mobile home park in our hands and under our management. With the knowledge that we've saved our homes and gained more control over our destiny, I expected to be more excited, but it's been a nightmare year of anxiety and factions. Believe it or not, some residents did not *want* us to save their homes; and we had to assume a couple of disheartening burdens in order to save any for anybody, but the acquisition is a done deal.

About a dozen of us sat around my living room and kitchen this afternoon with coffee, sparkling limeade and Asti, toasting the accomplishment--well, all except for our eldest resident. Ann's 93, pretty sharp, and sits on the Board, and she came back from closing too pissed to toast anything. Ann just sat and looked glum while the rest of us raised our glasses or mugs. She thinks we gave up too much to the former park owner, and I agree. For starters--the woman who inherited the Park, mismanaged it for decades, invested nothing in it, jacked us up for more and more rent to cover water bills and property taxes she never paid, and came within a day of losing the Park before signing a P&S with developers who were going to kick us all out. . .gets to live here RENT FREE for a year!

We had to give her that because that's in the original Purchase and Sales with the developers, which we had to match for Massachusetts to uphold our right of first refusal. And we ALSO have to pay to have an empty, uninhabitable trailer SHE owns hauled away. (She's actually scored a double play with that one--she already took advantage of a desperate couple full-timing in a little silver Airstream: THEY paid the heavy equipment guy who moved the big junk trailer to the back of the Park in the first place. Their campground was closing at the end of the season and they were willing to do *anything* for a lot to park their little home on over the winter.)

So already we're down one home's lot fees for twelve months in our make-or-break first year, when we know we're almost certainly going to run up against a few habitual late-pays who are going to test our eviction resolution even as they continue to thumb their nose at collection attempts by their former landlady. Who should have evicted them in the first place. We've heard she's put liens on some of the homes. Between her liens and our liens, I'm envisioning a contentious future! We'll be fighting over who owns how much of what home in here long after their inhabitants have been booted.

But the paperwork just says we have to let her live here free. It doesn't say we can't make her rue the day. Like when we show up with crowbars to take down her bigass tall stockade fence from that little private fiefdom she created so she wouldn't have to look at all of us hoi polloi. "Goooood morning, Marilyn! What? These? Why, we're here to dismantle the fence. It's against our Rules. We have given you a copy of our Rules. Surely you've read our Rules--'No perimeter fences will be allowed and all existing or proposed fences must have approval by the Board of Directors.' Your six foot fence [crrrack!] has *not* been approved [pryyy!] by the Board of Directors. Sorry, Marilyn, you're one of the hoi polloi now."

Or like when we show up with cement contractors to pour a foundation pad between her home and her best friends' home--the friends who lived here rent free and ran a garage here rent free for decades, and had all their electric usage, like the owner's, paid for by the rest of us all that time. They had somebody's home taken out at one time to give both *their* homes a bigger yard. "Goooood morning, Marilyn, hey GUESS what! Great news! You and Mel are gonna get new neighbors. They're bringing in a doublewide. Oh, hey! I know you and Mel love those bushes and flowers, so why dontcha think about digging them up and transplanting them across your big *back* yard, as a privacy screen--we're gonna be taking some of *that* next week for resident parking."

When we started down this path a year ago, prompted to save people's homes and preserve affordable housing, I figured just *getting* the property would be a long shot. I've never had any illusion about the hard work ahead of us to hang onto and rehabilitate this neglected, ill-favored little neighborhood. But somehow, I thought I'd at least feel a greater sense of relief and accomplishment on closing day. Triumph isn't like you read about.