MARK WAITE / PVT Jerry Nitchals and his wife Ginger sit in the back of the van they are living in with their daughter Kimberly and Labrador retriever Rebel in the rear of Petrack Park. GINA B. GOOD / PVT Lynda Rhodes says she's being harassed by her former tenants for evicting them because of their drug use. Advertisement

Eight year-old Kimberly Nitchals, clad in her bathing suit, walked her dog Rebel in the heat of Petrack Park Thursday afternoon.

"I can't get cooled off because mommy doesn't have any money," Kimberly said dejectedly.

Home for Kimberly and her parents, Jerry and Ginger Nitchals, has been a van parked in the rear of Petrack Park, near the rodeo arena.

Kimberly said they retrieved Rebel, a black labrador, from the pound. Her mother is afraid Child Protective Services will take Kimberly from them due to lack of a real home.

The swimming pool was an alluring sight across the ball fields at Petrack Park, but Jerry Nitchals said he didn't even have the 50 cents for admission.

Nitchals said he was one of a group of people evicted from Rhodes Ranch during a county raid Aug. 19.

Nitchals said county officials specified numerous violations, including an allegation that owner Lynda Rhodes never filed to have the Rhodes Ranch licensed as a trailer park. Jerry Nitchals said he was told the trailer he was living in was unfit for human residency.

"We tried to call the sheriff's department to go back in and get the rest of our property out there. They said you can't go into that property," he said.

Jerry Nitchals said when he eventually was able to enter the property, all his belongings were gone, including jewelry, a Futon, clothing and dishes.

He said he paid $675 per month to rent a one-bedroom trailer while he was employed at Bella Pictures. But when asked how he lost his job, Nitchals said he didn't show up for work for two and a half weeks.

In addition to paying rent, he said residents at Rhodes Ranch are asked to help out with the chores. Nitchals said he was asked to care for the horses after 10 hours at work every day.

Another former RV park resident, Jennifer Spedden, said she was evicted in July along with her husband Joseph and two teenage boys, Ashlee Poirier, 15, and Zeven Viero, 13 who are now staying in her mother's home.

"We had not had hot water since the day we moved into that place," she said. The family of four had been paying $550 per month to stay in a fifth wheel at the RV park since March, she said.

Joseph Spedden said he informed Rhodes they wouldn't pay the rent in July unless they got hot water, and they were told to pack up their things and go.

Jennifer Spedden said eventually they were given a five-day eviction notice.

Jerry Nitchals, meanwhile, said he went to every charity organization and was unable to get help for his family. But despite his family's problem, what concerns him more is the knowledge Rhodes is trying to solicit other customers to move into her RV park.

Kimberly, meanwhile, isn't enrolled in school which began last week. Her father said the family has no address, no place to go.

"I don't care about us. We're going to get by. We will find a way," Jerry Nitchals said.

To which his wife Ginger added, referring to Rhodes, "I want her to go down."

Lynda Rhodes' passion in life is rescuing at risk children and animals. She also manages the small RV park where the Nitchalses lived on her two-and-a-half acre property in the southern quadrant of town. She is now in the process of dismantling the park after being arrested by Nye County Sheriff's deputies and taken to the Pahrump jail twice in August.

According to Rhodes, the Nitchalses were habitual drug users, which is why she was in the process of evicting them and three other groups from her park.

She alleges the people she was evicting notified officials after they first trashed the trailers they were renting.

Rhodes has photographs showing nicely kept trailers with homemade curtains and doilies. Now the trailers have torn-out fixtures and wiring and everything inside is broken.

"They are total trashed," she said. "Some even have human feces smeared inside."

Aug. 8, Rhodes was charged with insurance fraud and false report of a crime. On Aug. 25, she was taken to jail again for conspiracy to commit a crime and 15 counts of defacing notices.

At age 55, this is the first time Rhodes has ever been in jail or arrested. "It was humiliating and terrifying," she said.

Rhodes emptied her bank account to post bail for her charges, leaving her with just $40. "It's a good thing I sold a horse last week," she said, "or I wouldn't be sitting out here at my ranch talking to you."

According to Rhodes, the insurance fraud arrest involved a truck she insured without knowing it had been damaged by the previous owner. She took the truck in trade for a fifth-wheel trailer from a woman who was staying at Rhodes RV park and wanted to get away from her abusive husband who was entering the park after dark and damaging property. Rhodes claims the man also threw gasoline on his wife from a five-gallon gas can with the intention of lighting her on fire.

"It was such a stressful time," said Rhodes. "We" -- the tenants staying at the park -- "were all afraid he would try to kill us all. I didn't really inspect the truck I traded for because so much was going on then. I didn't even notice the grill had been pulled off or any other damage."

Rhodes said she knew she had to insure the truck before she could change the registration.

According to the Nye County Sheriff's Office, the second arrest stemmed from code compliance violations and was ordered by the Nye County Code Compliance office. The manager of that department is currently attending out-of-town training and cannot be reached.

According to residents at the RV park, six or seven county vehicles entered Rhodes Ranch.

"It was a raid," said Rhodes, "with Nye County Sheriff detectives, code compliance personnel and animal control officers."

All the trailers Rhodes rented out were condemned and posted. Residents were allowed two hours to get their possessions out of the trailers. Animal Control personnel gave the animals a 24-hour reprieve to stay in the air-conditioned trailers.

Rhodes said the 15 charges of defacing notices subsequently filed against her were because she took the condemnation papers off the 15 posted trailers to take them to her accountant to have the trailers written off for tax purposes or so they could be sold.