CLEARWATER, Fla. (WFLA) – Hundreds of home owners living in Doral Village in Clearwater may be in for a fight with regional power, Duke Energy.

Duke balked at paying to replace underground wiring leading to Marsha Dixon’s lot last October.

Target 8 is seeing a pattern in which the electric company is attempting to wash its hands of ownership responsibility for wiring powering some aging mobile and manufactured home communities.

In October, during the rain brought by Hurricane Matthew, Marsha Dixon found herself sitting in the dark.

Her electrician relayed to her that everything on her side of the meter checked out.

“Because of it (the problem) being from the meter to the transformer, he thought it was Duke’s problem,” Ms. Dixon said.

According to Ms. Dixon, Duke confirmed the wiring was bad.

“And it was not their wiring, ” she said they told her.

To get the Dixon household up and running, Doral Village paid for repairs.

“The bill here alone was nearly $3-thousand dollars, I believe, and this is just for one home there’s about 537 homes here,” explained park manager, Kelly Kerr.

Doral Village opened in 1971.  Some underground cables are 46 years old.  Sooner or later they will need replacing.

“I can’t even imagine how much it would cost,” added Ms. Kerr.

Doral’s attorney is Jonathan Damonte.

“Duke’s refusing to do any work in the park whatsoever, and it would be in the neighborhood of several hundred thousand dollars to go in and substantially repair or replace the electrical system in that park,” explained Mr. Damonte.

“That would place a terrible burden on the residents that live here,” stated Ms. Kerr.

In January, Duke also balked at paying to bury power cables it replaced in Sunny Acres Mobile Home Park.  The cables powered 32 homes.

“Why they want to fight us on it, I don’t know,” homeowner Frances Dorsey said at the time.

Following a series of Target 8 reports, Duke shocked Sunny Acres’ residents by sending a crew out to bury the cables at its expense.

Up the road at Doral Village in Clearwater sit more than 500 homes.

Attorney Damonte says more and more Duke is demanding proof that it owns or is responsible for the power lines that run under these aging communities.

A 1995 engineering report put together for the residents of Doral Village might put shed light on the issue.

It states “the power company owns the service lines to the meter.”

Electrical consultant Michael Handley states, that Florida Power routinely paid for repairs such as those needed at Sunny Acres and Doral Village.

However he claims since Duke took over it’s a different story.

“They do not want to do one and have it come back and say now they have to do all of them,” said Mr. Handley.

“Duke Energy takes customers concerns very seriously. Our representatives will be working with this customer to obtain more information,  answer their questions and help resolve their concerns,” said Duke energy Senior Communications Consultant, Ana Gibbs.

If you have a problem that you think should be investigated call our Target 8 Helpline at 1-800-338-0808, or contact Steve Andrews at sandrews@wfla.com.WHAT OTHERS ARE CLICKING ON-

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