PARK TOWNSHIP, Mich. — For Shar Clark, a Saturday morning cup of coffee should have been calm. Sitting on her deck with short-term rentals surrounding all but one side of her Park Township home, she got chaos.
"This area has lost its community," Clark said about her neighborhood, a clumping of houses a short distance from Tunnel Park and Lake Michigan.
That morning, she overheard from her backyard "very non-appropriate music" and a group of girls talking about, "Sorry, their sexual escapades."
"People are people when they're on vacation," Clark said. "They're not really interested in respecting neighborhoods."
The run-ins with rowdy renters prompted Clark to speak against them as the township's Board of Trustees considered how to handle short-term rentals, passing a residential ban after years of public input.
READ MORE: Short-term rental owners request compromise ahead of residential ban
Despite unanimity from the township board, the partial ban has been met with legal pushback from short-term rental owners, including Jeremy Allen, president of Park Township Neighbors.
Days after the ban went into effect in October, PTN sued the township, seeking a lift on the "illegal" law.
"It's been extremely sad to see that there are decades and decades of family memories being potentially taken away," Allen said in a previous interview with FOX 17.
READ MORE: Short-term rental owners file lawsuit against Park Township
For Clark, though, her memories of short-term rentals include her daughter getting cat-called, late-night drinking games and pool toys landing in her backyard.
"I’ve woken up to, ‘Hey, drink! Chug-a-lug, chug-a-lug.’ You know, they're partying," Clark said. "I don't know how it could possibly get any worse."
With the residential ban in place, the three short-term rentals that surround Clark's house (and the 14 total in her neighborhood) are not allowed to be rented out for periods of four weeks or less, though that may be reversed or altered, depending on PTN's litigation.
"There are people in towns left and right that are just throwing their hands up and saying, 'Enough is enough,'" Clark said.
The court date for Park Township Neighbors v. Park Township is scheduled for December 3.
