Anyone from LaGrange/Three Rivers Community, ME here? (Bangor, Howland: 2013, mobile home)

[ChrisJot]

My question is probably a bit odd, but maybe someone can help.
A few years ago I saved an image of a house on my computer, which was posted on neighborshame.com, because it was overgrown by a tree. In the description it said that the picture was taken in Lagrange, ME.
For some reason I really like this house and it has been my desktop background for some time. I would love to find out where exactly the house is located, so that I could find it on Google Street View and see what it looks like in reality. I already searched Google Street View, but to no avail.
Does anyone maybe know where exactly this house is located? It seems to be on a major road.
Thank you so much for your help.

[Submariner]

I live near LeGrange. That could easily be a home there, maybe. There are many homes that look similar.

[Northern Maine Land Man]

That is an old Mobile home. When roofs on old mobile homes begin to leak, they are often moped with roofing tar or mastic to slow the links. When it is no longer possible to keep up with the leaks the owners usually buy trusses and put a pitched wooden roof on there with regular roofing shingles. This one also has an addition on the side toward the road. Most of these units cannot be moved to another site because they are not structurally strong enough survive a trip on the roads. Before the state prohibited owners from moving them it used to be common to see one on the road that looked like it had exploded. It was a big deal to clean up the debris field. About 15 years ago I saw one hit a frost heave in April and it did look just like a bomb going off inside.

Trailers with home made roofs cannot be moved unless that roof is removed from the trailer.

[Kiwiluver]

If I were a single man, I would have no issue taking up residence in such a place. Cheap rent, cheap heat, cheap taxes, what more could a single guy want or need? I haven't been single closing in on half a century! Ricky and Julian would be proud (Google Trailer Park Boys).

[ChrisJot]

Thanks everyone for the replies.
Especially Northern Maine Land Man for all theinformation. As I said I have had this image on my computer for some time, but it never occurred to me that it’s actually a mobile home. Ialways thought it’s a wooden house, but when I look at it now you’re definitely right.
It's probably, because I am from Germany and we don’t have mobilehomes/trailer homes here, or at least they are extremely rare, so when you see something that looks so much like a real house, you automatically assume it is.


Any ideas as to the exact location? I guess it’s a bit like finding a needle in a haystack, but maybe someone will recognize it.

[cebdark]

Originally Posted by ChrisJot

My question is probably a bit odd, but maybe someone can help.
A few years ago I saved an image of a house on my computer, which was posted on neighborshame.com, because it was overgrown by a tree. In the description it said that the picture was taken in Lagrange, ME.
For some reason I really like this house and it has been my desktop background for some time. I would love to find out where exactly the house is located, so that I could find it on Google Street View and see what it looks like in reality. I already searched Google Street View, but to no avail.
Does anyone maybe know where exactly this house is located? It seems to be on a major road.
Thank you so much for your help.

That's a "trouse." A trouse is a former mobile home in which someone has used to make a house, and this is an old one (combining the word "house" with "trailer" which is the older term for mobile home).

There are a lot of trouses in Maine. At any rate, I want to say I've seen this one - possibly on Mill St. in Lagrange but it could be somewhere along the way from Bradford. Some other possibilities are Howland Road, Medford Road, or Bennoch Road. As grown in as it is, it's entirely possible that it's gone by now. I don't know how old the picture is. But it's hard to say because there are a lot of these structures around.

This one is a fire trap. Most of these older ones are. It's basically a tin can with additions built on. You can see the original trailer at the front of it. If it were to unfortunately catch fire, it would go up in an instant. Mobile homes of this vintage are usually a mess (as this one certainly is). They are often riddled with mold, built with weak frames and stapled paneling. The floors often rot through. They are nothing like the ones built today.

Lagrange is a poor town. Some people poke fun at it for it's hillbilly reputation - rightly or wrongly. I know there are some interesting characters there, but there are everywhere, so that may not be a fair assertion. I'm simply saying that this is the reputation it seems to have always had.

There are a lot of dilapidated buildings there (as you can see on google street). One of my friends; however, recently purchased an older house that someone had done a lot of work on, and it's very charming. Unfortunately the majority of the house/barns around it are wrecks. She does have nice neighbors though.

She enjoys living there but the commute to work can be slow and difficult in bad weather. She commutes to Bangor. But she does love her little farm house.

PS: I think that websites called "Neighbor Shame" are disgusting, as are the people who post to them. Not everyone can afford someone's image of a perfect home, and not everyone has enough money to live in a new one.