Families at Shady Meadows Mobile Home Park in Cibolo went more than 24 hours without fully working water this week, with one longtime renter saying the park's landlord owed the water company roughly $20,000. The water came back on, and the city says a resolution has been reached, but key details about how the standoff started and who is actually responsible for paying remain unclear.
Julie Phillips, who has lived at the park for 20 years, said she notified the landlord as soon as the water problem began, according to KSAT. The landlord told her the water company may have turned off the water, and Phillips said she was told the landlord owed about $20,000 to the provider. The City of Cibolo did not confirm that figure when asked by the station.
Phillips said she pays $850 a month in rent and pays it on time, and that tenants expect the utilities they're paying for to actually work. Ownership of Shady Meadows itself is unclear, the station's report notes, adding another layer of confusion for residents trying to figure out who is on the hook for the unpaid bill.
A Foreclosure Rumor That Couldn't Be Confirmed
Phillips said her husband told her the landlord planned to collect November rent and then foreclose on the property, but KSAT could not confirm any potential foreclosure of the park. Some residents also said they'd heard that a change in management could be among the possible outcomes, and one unidentified resident said a city employee texted her about that possibility. According to that resident's account, the alleged city employee said that after the landlord paid the water bill, she told the utilities manager she was no longer responsible for the park.
None of those claims about ownership, foreclosure or a management switch have been independently verified, and the station's report treats them as accounts from residents rather than confirmed facts.
Water Restored After Repeated Outreach
Getting answers from the city wasn't easy, either. The station emailed the City of Cibolo multiple times and got no response before a reporter visited the city's utility office in person, and also tried reaching the mobile home park's listed phone number along with the current and former people responsible for the property. Water service was restored about an hour after the third email and before the in-person visit, per Nicole Perez's account relayed in the report.
The City of Cibolo and the parties involved ultimately reached a resolution regarding the water-service issue at the park, located at 760 FM 78, and water was confirmed on for residents as of Wednesday. The terms of that resolution were not detailed. Cibolo's utility department notes on its own site that the city is served by two separate water providers, the City of Cibolo and the Green Valley Special Utility District, which can complicate billing questions for renters trying to figure out who is actually owed what.
What Texas Law Says About Utility Shutoffs
For Phillips, the immediate hope is simpler than any of the paperwork questions: that the water stays on, since she said she has no savings to leave if she needed to move. Texas law offers some protection for renters in situations like this. Under Section 92.008 of the Texas Property Code, a landlord or a landlord's agent may not interrupt utility service that a tenant pays for directly to the utility company, except for bona fide repairs, construction or an emergency.
Shady Meadows is far from the only property where tenants have been caught in the middle of a landlord's unpaid utility bill. In Shreveport, the city shut off water to the Sanctuary Apartments after the complex's ownership group failed to pay its bill, leaving dozens of families without running water, according to KSLA. Service there was eventually restored after residents went six days without water, even though they had paid for the utility as part of their rent, the station later reported. Similar disputes have played out at a mobile home park in Oklahoma, where residents hauled water after an $11,000 bill triggered a three-day shutoff, as reported by The Cool Down, and at Leisure Village, a mobile home park where residents faced uncertainty after the property's water bill went unpaid, according to WKTV.
