CORNWALL — One of the last remaining residents of the Byway Trailer Park here says he’s not sure where he’s going to go.
“I’m going to stick around until my appeal is up,’’ said the man who wouldn’t give his name. “After that, I’m going to end up the same as him.’’
He was referring to André Darville, the outspoken resident of the trailer park, who has fought eviction by park owner Clifford McQuaid.
McQuaid gave those who haven’t already left the trailer park until Sept. 1 to get out or they’d have to deal with the sheriff. The sheriff’s department showed up at Darville’s trailer on Tuesday afternoon to escort him off his property.
McQuaid informed residents back in March that they had six months to find a new home — or a new place to put their current home.
After purchasing the trailer park in 2009, McQuaid is trying to sell the property. He told The Guardian back in March that his hand was forced. Expenses were too high for him to keep the park going, notably with the water and sewer bill ballooning.
McQuaid couldn’t be reached for comment Tuesday.
Three residents have since refused to leave. Darville and two others.
Darville refused to talk to The Guardian on Tuesday but the man the newspaper did speak to isn’t optimistic he’ll fare any better than his neighbour did.
“I’ve been here 31 years. You don’t like to leave but it ended up that we have to go,’’ he said.
While Darville wouldn’t comment, a friend of his who showed up said it’s impossible to make sense out of the situation.
“I’m just here to help somebody that’s been wronged,’ said the man who would only identify himself as Clayton.
Clayton said residents deserved better than to get eviction notices from McQuaid in March.
“(McQuaid) has no regard to the 28 individual lives and families disrupted here. It was ‘Get out’ because you’re standing in the way of my money. That’s what’s wrong with a lot of the people and places around here.’’
The residents took their fight to the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission but the regulatory body ruled in favour of the developer.
The Guardian also approached the third resident still living in the trailer park but he didn’t want to comment either.
The P.E.I. Humane Society was at the trailer park on Tuesday and removed Darville’s three dogs. Clayton said Darville also had two cats, Taz and Georgie.
Taz, a 12-year-old mackerel Tabby, sat on a chair on Darville’s front yard as everything was happening.
Clayton said Darville had taken the stray cat in after some kids in the neighbourhood broke its back, tail and blinded it in one eye, nursing it back to health.
The Humane Society didn’t take the cats before it left and it wasn’t immediately clear what would become of them. The Guardian left a message with the Humane Society but the call was not immediately returned.
Clayton wasn’t sure exactly where Darville was headed but figured he’s settle in the country and get his dogs back in about a week.
“This is a dog-eat-dog world we live in,’’ Clayton said.
You highlight some very touching possibilities, and you have every right to be confused. But rest assured that none of us have perfect mental health, we all lack something mentally in some way or other, so none of us should judge another's mental health, but only accept everyone just as they are. I recall a great teacher decades ago, writing this on the blackboard for us students to read and remember: "There's so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that it ill behooves any of us to rail at the faults in the rest of us."