etc
Inactive
I full-timed for a few years, stayed at about 5 CGs and made a few mental notes...
While embracing the RV lifestyle, I want to avoid CGs as much as possible.
Generally the problems with them are the following:
1. You get very little for what you pay for. Here in DC, they run about 700/month as the cheapest, often 250/weekly. And even that is not even remotely convenient, sometimes 2 hours away. That's a terrible deal considering you are getting a tiny 50'x30' lot with other units so close to you that you can almost open the window and touch the rig next to you. I have been at one particular CG in New Jersey and it was packed like sardines in a can. So you pay 700 for a tiny piece of dirt with 3 hookups on it. It makes sense if you are visiting the area for a few weeks, or even have a project for a few months but does not make sense for an ongoing, permanent living solution.
It's cheaper to buy 5 acres and still have your monthly payment be 700. You get a hell of a lot more for the same funds spent.
I realize you can go to rural Texas and have your payment run you 350/month but by the same token you can buy a cheap property over there too with the same monthly payment - and have it all to yourself. Secondly, I have a "job" in the area, I cannot just quit and go to some place where the CGs are cheap. Cheap they are but for a reason. Not practical.
2. They often not open year round, closing from Nov to April. Or not geared for full-timing period with no monthly sites, that's about 3/4 of them.
3. I have been to stereotypical 'white-trash' CGs with daily, or shall we say nightly police visits. It's what you might say is a typical media representation of the RV lifestyle: uneducated working class people sitting near the trailers, drinking beer, with 10 kids running around. That view is a fiction of course but a few times I have wondered. I stayed at one particular CG where the tenants used to have their alcohol stolen from them, as they kept it and some other stuff outside in the winter. Turns out it was the owner's kids that did that. They thought they owned the CG.
I stayed at better CGs too, some of them pretending to be 5 star but not really delivering.
One was nicely run but the owner was a character straight out of Seinfield's Soup Nazi episode. Let your car registration lapse - get evicted. Not register your trailer - eviction. There were a bunch of other reasons too why you could evicted. They would look for car tags to be expired in the next month and warn the owners. Made up a bunch of other crazy rules like one car per lot, had to go to a designated parking area, even if you are handicapped, had to walk back.
She would sometimes patrol the property, looking for open alcohol. Old lady with entirely too much time on her hands. I got fed up with the huge degree of micromanagement.
And they were cheap B****s. I thought they made probably 50,000 per month from all the sites, yet were too cheap to install wireless repeaters everywhere. So the wireless internet connection was unavailable in most places in the park, except directly in front of the office. There were too many trees in in the CGs and they blocked wireless. I would sometimes park my car in front of the office, run a power cable to to the power outlet and pick up the signal this way. This went on for a few weeks until they started to accuse me of stealing their power. Never mind that the laptop doesn't hardly draw any power and that I would have plugged it in at my site anyway, if I had the wireless available.
They went their patrol people to find me and yank out the power cable anytime I had it plugged in to their shore power.
Eventually they kicked me out because my RV had registration issues (I stayed at 5 CG but they were the only ones who had an issue with it) I bought from some people in PA, but didn't get a notarized title and couldn't use it to register it in PA, they must have it notarized. Beware of that particular detail, the owners' signature means nothing sometimes.
They would also sometimes kick out other people, based on random and capricious criteria.
In the summer, they were so packed that they had no monthly sites, being the only CG in the area, they could afford to get away with anything. So the usual 700/month did not apply, it was more like 250/week or over 1000/month for this abuse.
That particular CG had solidified my decision never, ever (EVER) to stay at a CG again.
The other CG I stayed out was the direct opposite. The owners would go to Florida on an extended basis, let some other tenant take care of things, like collect payments and take note of what was broken and that's about it. I never saw anyone. And that was good. Except that it was kind of far from from where I worked, a good 1:30 commute one way.
Anyway, I guess my ideal would be to buy some land and put an RV on it.
Problem is, most places don't like that kind of thing. They want to you buy a house with a price tag that looks like a phone number and sign up for that 30-year program. Yeah right. That's why I keep renting but that too gets old.
That's the key reason why I want to get out from People's Republic of Maryland. How can you call the land you buy your land if they micromanage you to death and dictate what you can and cannot put on it. It's not like I would be building a nuclear power station.
How do you find out which counties in a given state allow you to buy land and put an RV on it? Or a mobile home even.
While embracing the RV lifestyle, I want to avoid CGs as much as possible.
Generally the problems with them are the following:
1. You get very little for what you pay for. Here in DC, they run about 700/month as the cheapest, often 250/weekly. And even that is not even remotely convenient, sometimes 2 hours away. That's a terrible deal considering you are getting a tiny 50'x30' lot with other units so close to you that you can almost open the window and touch the rig next to you. I have been at one particular CG in New Jersey and it was packed like sardines in a can. So you pay 700 for a tiny piece of dirt with 3 hookups on it. It makes sense if you are visiting the area for a few weeks, or even have a project for a few months but does not make sense for an ongoing, permanent living solution.
It's cheaper to buy 5 acres and still have your monthly payment be 700. You get a hell of a lot more for the same funds spent.
I realize you can go to rural Texas and have your payment run you 350/month but by the same token you can buy a cheap property over there too with the same monthly payment - and have it all to yourself. Secondly, I have a "job" in the area, I cannot just quit and go to some place where the CGs are cheap. Cheap they are but for a reason. Not practical.
2. They often not open year round, closing from Nov to April. Or not geared for full-timing period with no monthly sites, that's about 3/4 of them.
3. I have been to stereotypical 'white-trash' CGs with daily, or shall we say nightly police visits. It's what you might say is a typical media representation of the RV lifestyle: uneducated working class people sitting near the trailers, drinking beer, with 10 kids running around. That view is a fiction of course but a few times I have wondered. I stayed at one particular CG where the tenants used to have their alcohol stolen from them, as they kept it and some other stuff outside in the winter. Turns out it was the owner's kids that did that. They thought they owned the CG.
I stayed at better CGs too, some of them pretending to be 5 star but not really delivering.
One was nicely run but the owner was a character straight out of Seinfield's Soup Nazi episode. Let your car registration lapse - get evicted. Not register your trailer - eviction. There were a bunch of other reasons too why you could evicted. They would look for car tags to be expired in the next month and warn the owners. Made up a bunch of other crazy rules like one car per lot, had to go to a designated parking area, even if you are handicapped, had to walk back.
She would sometimes patrol the property, looking for open alcohol. Old lady with entirely too much time on her hands. I got fed up with the huge degree of micromanagement.
And they were cheap B****s. I thought they made probably 50,000 per month from all the sites, yet were too cheap to install wireless repeaters everywhere. So the wireless internet connection was unavailable in most places in the park, except directly in front of the office. There were too many trees in in the CGs and they blocked wireless. I would sometimes park my car in front of the office, run a power cable to to the power outlet and pick up the signal this way. This went on for a few weeks until they started to accuse me of stealing their power. Never mind that the laptop doesn't hardly draw any power and that I would have plugged it in at my site anyway, if I had the wireless available.
They went their patrol people to find me and yank out the power cable anytime I had it plugged in to their shore power.
Eventually they kicked me out because my RV had registration issues (I stayed at 5 CG but they were the only ones who had an issue with it) I bought from some people in PA, but didn't get a notarized title and couldn't use it to register it in PA, they must have it notarized. Beware of that particular detail, the owners' signature means nothing sometimes.
They would also sometimes kick out other people, based on random and capricious criteria.
In the summer, they were so packed that they had no monthly sites, being the only CG in the area, they could afford to get away with anything. So the usual 700/month did not apply, it was more like 250/week or over 1000/month for this abuse.
That particular CG had solidified my decision never, ever (EVER) to stay at a CG again.
The other CG I stayed out was the direct opposite. The owners would go to Florida on an extended basis, let some other tenant take care of things, like collect payments and take note of what was broken and that's about it. I never saw anyone. And that was good. Except that it was kind of far from from where I worked, a good 1:30 commute one way.
Anyway, I guess my ideal would be to buy some land and put an RV on it.
Problem is, most places don't like that kind of thing. They want to you buy a house with a price tag that looks like a phone number and sign up for that 30-year program. Yeah right. That's why I keep renting but that too gets old.
That's the key reason why I want to get out from People's Republic of Maryland. How can you call the land you buy your land if they micromanage you to death and dictate what you can and cannot put on it. It's not like I would be building a nuclear power station.
How do you find out which counties in a given state allow you to buy land and put an RV on it? Or a mobile home even.