Average monthly rent at Willow Lake was $660 last year, according to Chicago-based owner Manufactured Home Communities. That was well above the average rent of $403 a month for communities the company owned throughout 2001 and 2002. 

Out of the scores of communities for which MHC provided data in its annual SEC filing, only a handful had average rents of more than $660 as of the end of last year. All those communities with higher rents are in California. 

Rents for sites in mobile or manufactured-home communities, as they are known in the industry, come on top of the price residents pay to own their homes. Manufactured-home prices average about $60,000, according to MHC's Web site, but larger, better-appointed models can cost more than $90,000. New homes at Willow Lake start at about $80,000. 

And while Terry Nelson, president of Mobile Home Owners Association of Illinois, says the rents at Willow Lake probably are the highest in the state, it's not just the rents that have residents up in arms. Some argue that rents MHC plans to charge new tenants are making it difficult for those who want to sell their homes to do so. 

Increases Hit Seniors Hard 

Noretta Fergelec, 69, who lives with her 89-year-old mother, says the rent on her triplewide lot, the largest in Willow Lake, was $591 when she moved in 10 years ago. It now stands at $926. 

Fergelec, a former accounting manager at an insurance agency, had planned to continue working until she was 75. Those plans were cut short three years ago when she was declared legally blind. No longer able to afford the rent on her lot, she's been looking to sell her home. 

That, she says, has become nearly impossible since MHC raised the rent that a new tenant would pay for her site to $1,500 a month. 

Fergelec and others say such increases can force people to sell their homes to MHC for very low prices, hand over the title or even abandon their homes. 

"They get (residents) to the point where they really have to do something and then they come in with a low-ball price," Fergelec says. "They want this property and they want it bad." 

Fergelec plans to take her place in a picket of an open house at Willow Lake scheduled for this weekend. Residents plan to picket in two-hour shifts for eight hours on both Saturday and Sunday. 

Aim For Younger Tenants? 

Phil Asplund, president of the Willow Lake Homeowner's Association, says MHC's strategy may be part of an effort to attract younger, higher-income people to the community. 

"They're the only ones that can afford the rent," Asplund says. Willow Lake is an age-restricted community, so only 20 percent of residents may be between 40 and 55. Eighty percent must be older than 55. Asplund estimates the percentage of 40- to 55-year-old residents is probably much lower than 20 percent, making considerable growth in the number of younger residents a possibility. 

Rents for new Willow Lake tenants now range from $700 to $1,100, according to figures residents say they were given by the community's manager. Fergelec's lot is the only one with a new-tenant rent of more than $1,100. 

Calls to three different MHC offices were not returned Thursday. A real estate investment trust with total assets of $1.16 billion as of June 30, MHC is chaired by real-estate heavyweight Sam Zell, who also chairs the boards of real estate giants Equity Office Properties and Equity Residential. 

Asplund said he received a call from an MHC representative on Thursday but turned down an offer to meet with company officials. He said the difficulty he had obtaining a response from MHC in the past led him to doubt the value of a meeting. 

Despite Willow Lake's comparatively high rents, MHC had relatively little trouble attracting tenants to the 617-unit development in 2002. The occupancy rate at year end was 94.2 percent, compared with 81.2 percent in the company's seven other Midwestern communities. 

But Asplund says a recent tour of the community revealed that 62 homes, or nearly 10 percent of the total, are for sale, 33 lots are empty and eight lots feature unsold new homes. 

Willow Lake rents have been significantly higher than those in other MHC communities since at least 1998, when MHC reported Willow Lake's average monthly rent was $538.