Florida (and Trailer Trash)

[Maxtar]

My wife and I are in our first year at a Florida snowbird location and at this place there are permanent mobile homes (about 30) and a large area for RV's.

We are in our RV and have found the great majority of the people who are there (both mobile home residents and RV er's))very friendly and helpful. One day my wife was in the clubhouse talking to a lady and she mentioned that we were in an RV and the lady said to my wife something along the lines of: "Oh, you're one of those?" and walked off in a huff without another word. I couldn't believe this happened.

I told my wife that if it ever happens again with someone else that she should respond by saying: "Just because you trailer doesn't have wheels on it does not mean you're not trailer trash either."

Has anyone else ever had this kind of experience?

[wny_pat1]

Its Florida, what can I say. Many in that state don't like snowbirds. Say that we make the prices of everything go up, and buy up all the land. They don't even like folks who are not Floridians but live there year round. They say if you weren't born there, you are not a native.

[schlep1967]

Odds are she has seen many "mobile rv's" come and go. And chances are more than one of our fellow RV'ers has given her a reason to look down on us. So here is how I see it. She should not lump all of us mobile people together, and we should not consider all permenants to be "trailer trash" or any other kind af trash based on a few bad apples actions.

[B_O__Plenty]

az99 wrote:
I never have that problem. I look so old,grouchy and opinionated that no one ever talks to me in a situation like that. 🙂

I thought I was the only one that was that way! It really works for me..

B.O.

[tplife]

Why not respond with something like, "I know an RV forum member who told me who the 'trailer trash' really were. In the late '50s and early '60s his mother and father lived in a large trailer they pulled across the US, about eight times. Years later the boy asked his mom, an ER nurse, why one earth they would ever have lived in a trailer. She explained that in those days, rental apartments were typically filthy and full of vermin, really no place to raise a family. With Dad an FAA official, often on the move from contract to contract, it made sense to have a nice clean home of their own, so they purchased a Ford F-100 truck and a big ol' trailer - and got a lot of adventures to boot. When you experience quality care at a busy hospital, or fly coast to coast safely and comfortably, please remember the "trailer trash" in your own community. 🙂



And that cool old trailer, spotted here in "Hog Wallow NJ" in 1988:

[BarbaraOK]

mayo30 wrote:
"Ya this was the cheapest place around"."How long have you been here?"

Great response.

Barb

[mayo30]

"Ya this was the cheapest place around"."How long have you been here?"

[colliehauler]

LindaD wrote:
This will be our 4th winter in Florida. We travel a good part of the state and stay in many campgrounds - private, state parks, mobile home parks with some RV spots, etc. and never have experienced anything but friendly, welcoming people. Our experience has been a positive one not only in campgrounds but restaurants, stores, etc. There are nice and not so nice people everywhere and I find that for the most part if you are friendly and greet people with a smile you can't go wrong.

I agree with you a 100%.

[LindaD]

This will be our 4th winter in Florida. We travel a good part of the state and stay in many campgrounds - private, state parks, mobile home parks with some RV spots, etc. and never have experienced anything but friendly, welcoming people. Our experience has been a positive one not only in campgrounds but restaurants, stores, etc. There are nice and not so nice people everywhere and I find that for the most part if you are friendly and greet people with a smile you can't go wrong.

[PawPaw_n_Gram]

I try to avoid places with a lot of long-term/ permanent residents.

They are a small community - and some resent folks using up 'their' facilities. You will get the same attitude from locals in tourist towns once get outside the tourist trap strip.

Can't always avoid such. My son-in-law lives in Fort Lauderdale, and unless we part at the COE park west of Okeechobee - we have to stay at such a park. Two weeks max, and I'm gone. (His development covenants don't even allows us to pull the TT into his home area at all.)

One tool I use when looking at places to stay is Google Earth/ Google Maps. If I see what looks like a lot of 'park models' in a RV park - I'll look elsewhere.

[Mootpoint]

The old pun .... Size doesn't matter. It doesn't. We all have that common desire to hit the road with our homes on wheels, be it towed or driven and see what's out there, beautiful and interesting sights and places and the beautiful, interesting and all to often humorous people we meet along the way.

[colliehauler]

I have been guilty of passing judgement on people I haven't meet, Happened at Topsail FL. A couple pulled into the site next to mine with a high end coach. The sales tax on that coach would have paid for my rig. I thought the people would be snobs, I couldn't have been more wrong. His wife had MS and would watch my Collies out the window. The husband asked if I could bring the Collies into the coach so his wife could pet them. They were very nice people and I was wrong.

[Mootpoint]

I was chastised by a person who was upset because I called their "coach" a MH.
I was excused because I just own a 5th and wouldn't know the proper terminology for the upper end of RV'ing.:h























'

[v10superduty]

docj wrote:
The OP needs to get his terminology right to start with. Those snooty folks aren't living in "mobile homes" they're living in "park models"! There's a world of difference. 😉

Having stayed one winter in a big snowbird park like that in FL, we'll never do it again. Our experience was that the "trailer trash", I'm sorry, I mean, park model residents, didn't want to have anything to do with the "transients", the RV people. Even if they weren't snooty, they simply weren't friendly. We've looked at other snowbird parks in Tucson and they seemed pretty much the same--lots of park models interspersed with a few RV sites.

Where we winter in TX the rules do not permit park models, except for a couple for workampers. Everyone is an RVer and we even get a few families with kids during the holiday breaks. We like having a diverse mix of people that's not entirely gray-haired.

So my hair is grey...:W
What you got against us.
I don't have a park model so that can't be your hangup with me??
:h

[CJ5_jeeper]

It says something about the economy that you see more of these parks. We have seen more parks like this in the last few years. There are several we have driven in, looked around and drove out.