When I went to my 15-year high school reunion, two of my (female) classmates were grandmothers.
Something that I’m wondering, but I’m not sure about (might have to re-read): Was the mobile home being towed on a flatbed trailer, or was the mobile being towed (with wheels) as a trailer?
From the original article:
Then it should have been capitalized. 
Yup. That about sums it up.
Who the fuck in their right mind let’s humans and pets stay inside the trailer during the move? Anyone with a lick of common sense would think twice about that. And she didn’t empty it out first? ALL her worldly possessions were inside? Jeebus!
Pancake is a stupid putz and the 35-year-old grandma (Oy, vey!) should sue him if he did indeed misrepresented himself saying he was insured and would get all the required permits. But anyone who agrees to move your trailer for $200 probably can’t afford insurance and has no assets, so she’ll get nothing and she shouldn’t. She didn’t do her due dilligence in making sure she had fulfilled all the legal requirements of the move, including hiring a licenced and insured professional.
Bottom line: responsible parties are Grandma and Pancake.
Sheriff did what he had to do.
Home owner is a flippin’ IDIOT.
Pancake is an uber-putz.
And all involved make me weep for the future of the human race.
Linky to the newer story (courtesy Fark) with a few extra details.
Pancake was trying to “help out” a friend of a friend, it doesn’t seem he ever claimed he was a pro. They tried to move the single-wide by towing it with a farm tractor. The wheels came off the trailer. Sheriff got professional movers to try to save it for hours, but they couldn’t.
The thing that bother’s me about the story isn’t that she was that stupid, but what about the other three aduts that lived in the trailer too!
If it was the one poor woman who genuinely got taken for a ride by a scammer, I would feel much more sympathetic. I would think she was a victim of poverty who clearly lacks enough of an education and commons sense to make a few calls and find a few things out. But hell, she manages a trailer park. Maybe it’s never come up before because people don’t move their trailers that often, but at the very least, you’d think she’d have a better idea of who to call or at least ask about the policies and procedures of moving a trailer, and you’d know better than to try it with a farm tractor.
By untreated mental disorder I mean she probably has a low IQ, and doesn’t have the same resources that allow richer low-IQ people to get through life without their disability making them homeless. There is a difference between making bad choices because you are lazy and greedy and making bad choices because your brain doesn’t work right.
Initially I felt sorry for them, but as a new and more detailed version of events has been reported, I feel sorry for them no longer.
Firstly, even if the one woman was foolish, there were four adults, five if you include Chris “Pancake” Meyers, who collectively agreed to move a mobile home by hauling it with a farm tractor on a heavily traveled express way, and without unloading it first. That’s absurd.
Secondly, their story is quite frankly, pure bullshit. The Sheriff contacted a professional heavy-duty towing company that tried for hours to move the trailer, but it was so structurally unsound, their efforts would have destroyed it. It was like a condemned building whose foundation was compromised: it was at a point that as a matter of public safety, it had to be demolished. Meanwhile, it was the Sheriff and a single deputy redirecting highway traffic for nine hours.
Thirdly, the family was given several hours to retrieve all their belongings, and the Sheriff asked them repeatedly if they were sure they had everything before the demolition proceeded. They blatantly lied to the media about this claiming the destruction was immediate, without warning, and that they were threatened with being shot if they tried to enter to rescue their property.
The end result, good samaritans are buying the family a trailer that is not falling apart. They seem to have escaped all criminal charges of which there are many. The only real victim seems to be the Sheriff who was unfairly vilified by the media.
And once again, stupidity is rewarded, not punished. ::bangs head against nearest wall::