GRASS VALLEY, Calif. (KTXL) — There were mobile home parks and large apartment complexes that got notices from Pacific Gas and Electric prior to Wednesday’s power shut-offs — but some tenants said they were left out of the loop.
Sal Alesse lives in the sprawling Forest Springs Mobile Home park just outside of Grass Valley. Residents there and in some large apartment complexes did not get PG&E notices, which only went to the owner of the master electricity meter.
The mobile home park gets the bill and then charges residents for the electricity each one uses.
On Wednesday, management plastered mailboxes with an early morning decision — the power would go out at 11 a.m.
Alesse said those who pay the bills deserve better.
“A little thing on your mailbox, I don’t think that really gets it. I mean, how many people come over here looking at this thing,” he told FOX40.
During past outages, management had time to put notices in each mailbox.
PG&E also put management in a tough spot. It was hard for them to put up-to-date notices in each mailbox for the 360 mobile home units in the park.
And updates were coming fast, sometimes changing by the hour.
Many senior residents at the mobile home park are ill or immobile, so they don’t check their mail every day.
Resident Doug Marsh said PG&E has to clean up its act but he was not blaming park management.
“They have to be notified in time to put that together so we get notified in time and sometimes that just doesn’t happen,” he said.
Cell phone notices only refer to residents by zip code. Calling PG&E’s 800 number can sometimes lead nowhere and the online computer address locator for updates is not always useful.
“I don’t have a computer and there’s a lot of people I talk to that don’t have computers,” Alesse said.
There was an even greater frustration in getting information regarding when the power will get turned back on.
“I don’t care if they hire a team to go to people’s houses, let people know,” Alesse said.
