MHMSM.com recently sent a letter to Des Moines Register Managing Editor Randy Brubaker regarding a December 26th article titled “The most dangerous housing in America.” The letter pointed out the article failed to correctly distinguish between “mobile” homes built before the implementation of the HUD Code in 1976, and modern, safe manufactured homes. “No, the ‘most dangerous housing,’ is not manufactured housing,” MHMSM.com reporter Eric Miller wrote. “That housing is statistically as safe as more conventional site-built housing.”  The article recalled the first death of 2010 occurred during a fire in an old, pre-HUD code mobile home, then goes on to note one in 10 fire fatalities in Iowa during the past six years has happened inside a “manufactured home” and adds that most of them occurred in “trailers” that are at least 25 years old. The article makes a late reference to the HUD code, but doesn’t relate it to the term “manufactured.” Miller thanked the paper for making readers aware of the need to replace older mobile homes, but calls the article a missed opportunity to differentiate modern manufactured homes, which research shows are as statistically as safe as site-built homes, and pre-HUD Code mobile homes. View the letter here: http://mhmsm.com/c/40

See also these related items:

• Fact Sheet for Reporters: http://www.mhmarketingsalesmanagement.com/manufactured-home-fact-sheet-for-reporters
• “Do Manufactured Homes Burn Faster? Experts Say No” http://www.mhmarketingsalesmanagement.com/industry-news/industry-in-focus/1260-do-manufactured-homes-burn-faster