HUNTINGTON BEACH : Mobile Park Tenants Troubled by Vandals

Claiming she’s fed up with vandals, Barbara L. Broell said she’ll go to the City Council on Monday night to plead for help in making the seniors-oriented Huntington Shorecliffs mobile homes safe from “riffraff.”

“Mean-spirited” vandals have pelted Broell’s mobile home with rocks, beer cans, pumpkins at Halloween time and even a golf club, she said. The attacks have come from a hangout of partying young adults on Frankfort Avenue, outside the park, said Broell, 69, who lives alone in her coach.

In July, the mischief-makers shattered a window over her bed. She dialed 911 and cowered in the corner until police arrived, too frightened to turn on her lights, she recalls.

The 308-unit park serves people aged 55 and older.

Other park residents confirm the outbreak of vandalism in a series of letters to City Council members. Tenants said that thieves stole two cars within a year, broke into a coach and stole a purse and caused other damage with rock barrages. The body of a dead cat reportedly was left on a roof to rot.

“Sirs,” one woman wrote, “This vandalism is very serious. We are all elderly and these frightening experiences that are happening to all of us could bring on a heart attack resulting in someone’s death.”

Broell wrote to the City Council, complaining about police response.

“We feel that we are doing all we can to protect ourselves, but it feels like the police aren’t very interested in finding solutions only waiting for someone to be hurt, or killed, before it is worthy of their attention,” she said.

Police were unavailable for comment Thursday.

Broell, a retired travel consultant, suggests that officials increase the height of a three-foot masonry wall surrounding the park to discourage assailants from loitering in the area. She also wants undercover police to patrol the park between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m.

Broell says she hopes she opens “a Pandora’s box” and ignites a call for action among her neighbors and other residents to reverse an alleged rise in lawlessness throughout the city.

“It seems to be fun to torment people in today’s society,” she said in an interview. “There’s a mentality out there that it’s fun, that it’s entertainment.”

Broell says she doesn’t know her tormentors, hasn’t talked with them and hasn’t given them cause to bedevil her.

Park manager Wayne Beer said vandals also pulled up 23 oleander bushes from park grounds.