In Romulus' West Village Estates, one homeowner says her American dream now smells like raw sewage. For months, she reports, waste has pooled beneath her manufactured home, feeding mold, softening floors and shifting the foundation. The mess has ruined belongings and left her wondering how long it is safe to stay. Neighbors and resident advocates in the park say repeated flooding and drainage failures have turned multiple lots damp and unsanitary. The homeowner, who owns her house but rents the lot underneath, says repeated complaints to park management led to little more than short-term patches.
According to Michigan Advance, 55-year-old Cynara Johnson documented a disconnected sewer line and raw sewage seeping into her crawlspace, indoor mold in the shower and floors so soft they were beginning to sag. City building officials who inspected her home in December flagged "potential structural, sanitary and health-related concerns" and listed sanitary cleanup, foundation and tie-down repairs, and moisture and growth remediation as required corrections. “This sewage appeared to be draining down the walkway toward the street and was constant,” Johnson told Michigan Advance.
Photographs published by The Detroit News show dark mold in a shower, a detached sewer pipe under skirting and a contractor-sized hole in a floor, images advocates say drive home the health and safety risks residents face. The photo gallery, credited to photographer David Guralnick, captures the kind of damage neighbors say they see throughout the park.
West Village Estates appears on Sun Communities' official site as a Sun-owned community in Romulus, and residents say the national real-estate investment trust has been slow to offer relocation help or long-term fixes. The company’s online listing highlights amenities and homes for sale in the community but does not address residents' sanitation complaints.
City Inspection And Residents' Demands
Romulus building officials ordered cleanup and structural corrections but stopped short of publicly assigning who will pay for the full slate of repairs, leaving homeowners to juggle mortgage obligations, insurance questions and basic safety concerns. A GoFundMe set up to help Johnson relocate details ongoing sewage, mold and structural problems and asks community members to chip in so she can move. Advocates with MHAction and local resident leaders say they want stronger, clearer enforcement from city and state regulators so homeowners are not forced to choose between their health and the equity tied up in their homes.
Why This Reaches Beyond Romulus
Housing advocates argue that what is playing out in West Village reflects a broader pattern in which large investors and real estate investment trusts own thousands of manufactured-home communities. That kind of concentration, critics say, can weaken day-to-day maintenance and leave residents exposed when basic infrastructure fails. The Private Equity Stakeholder Project tracker shows heavy private-equity ownership in manufactured-housing markets, with Michigan among the states that have large numbers of private equity-owned parks. Policy groups say the situation underscores the need for tighter oversight and clearer rules about who is responsible for fixing lot-level infrastructure when things go wrong.
What Comes Next
Johnson and her neighbors say they plan to keep pressing Romulus officials and state regulators for a concrete remediation plan and help relocate the most vulnerable residents while work is underway. For now, the problems at West Village Estates are both a local health concern and a warning flare about who ultimately pays when community infrastructure collapses under residents' feet.
