Junk Lover Accumulates a Heap of Legal Woes

As far as law enforcement officials can tell, Don Hyatt Martin has never thrown anything out.

Martin, a demolition contractor from North Hollywood, stores chopped-up palm leaves in barrels. He owns dozens, perhaps hundreds, of unhinged doors; a thousand one-gallon containers of flammable liquid, some of which leak; tons of broken concrete and used lumber, and a large supply of Popsicle sticks. His inventory of broken refrigerators, stoves and rusty water heaters is vast. His junk, which he stores at numerous apartments and houses he owns in the San Fernando Valley, has provided homes to countless rats and termites, according to city records.

His penchant for saving junk has gotten him into trouble with the city attorney, the Fire Department, the Building and Safety Department, the county Health Department, the state Department of Motor Vehicles, City Councilman Joel Wachs--and quite a few irate neighbors in North Hollywood.

‘Beyond Belief’

“He is the worst pack rat, no question about it, in the whole city,” said Michael A. Theule, an inspector with the downtown legal department of the Fire Department. “Just the scope of his activities is beyond belief. Most pack rats scavenge in trash cans; this guy takes down whole buildings and stores them illegally.

“It’s unbelievable the danger he is causing,” said Theule, who has been investigating Martin for two years.

Martin’s voracious appetite for saving junk is unparalleled, say puzzled authorities. They say Martin has even saved decrepit buildings. Not long ago Martin hauled a house that apparently was meant to be demolished onto one of his residential properties, on Cartwright Street in North Hollywood. To squeeze it into the backyard through a driveway, Martin had it sawed in half. City crews are hauling it away this week as a public health nuisance.

At one 12-unit apartment building in North Hollywood, Martin has two paying tenants, but the other 10 apartments are overflowing with junk.

Expensive Cleanup

Authorities estimate it will cost the city up to $100,000, which they will try to collect from his tax bills, to clean up several of Martin’s junk-laden properties in North Hollywood and a six-acre spread in Sun Valley. Since January, city crews have removed debris from four of the 10 Valley properties Martin is known to possess.

This week and last, city workers dismantled and carted off one of Martin’s apartment buildings, condemned in 1963, which inspectors joked must have been kept erect “by termites holding hands.” By the time the job was finished on Tuesday, dump trucks had hauled away 2,000 cubic yards of garbage and hazardous materials. The only salvageable items left behind were five 12-foot 2-by-4s, a pile of bricks and a bush.

Martin’s trouble with the law apparently started innocuously enough four years ago, when he was taken to court by the city for allegedly maintaining an “illegal nonconforming” carport. Since then, Martin’s legal problems have escalated into a myriad of charges, ranging from using fake driver’s licenses to posing a health hazard to the public, said Deputy City Atty. John Rocke, who is handling at least six multiple-count city cases against the landlord.

Trial Date

A trial on the misdemeanor charges is set for June 5 in Municipal Court in Van Nuys. The driver’s license charges, which involve a felony, are set for a preliminary hearing next week.

Martin, however, blames a government conspiracy for his legal problems. “If it comes to court, you will find they are lying,” the 42-year-old said, without elaborating.

Investigators agree Martin is an enigma. Authorities say Martin apparently owns or has access to $1 million or more worth of property and 100 vehicles and seems to have an unlimited amount of money to buy dilapidated buildings. Yet investigators say he wears ragged clothing and looks unkept.

“You can talk to him at times and think you’re talking to a business executive. At other times he looks like a transient,” Theule said.

“He is a very successful, very shrewd and bright businessman who knows what he is doing,” concludes Rocke, who calls Martin a “mini-land baron” and “sort of like a modern day Howard Hughes.”

Martin, a tall, thin man who has dyed his hair black, refused to shed any light on his financial resources except to say, “Everything is an exaggeration.”

Father ‘Can’t Understand’

Even Martin’s father, Claude Martin, finds his son inscrutable. Junk, the father observed, “is more valuable to him than business income. I can’t understand it.”

Martin figures that, if his son put tenants in his 12-unit Vineland Avenue apartment building instead of trash, he could earn $4,000 a month. Martin said his son has let his affairs slide since some homes he owned were destroyed in a fire several years ago.

“He looks like he deteriorated. He doesn’t look like a business person anymore,” Martin said.

For the past week, Claude Martin, a soft-spoken man who seems distressed by his son’s predicament, has been trying to remove the trash from the Vineland apartment building before the Fire Department comes to clean the place out. Martin said he did not know where his son was.

Law enforcement officials also have had trouble locating Martin, although two fire inspectors once spotted him on a motorcycle at one of his properties. One of the inspectors ran to call the police while the other managed to grab Martin’s arm as he tried to drive away, inspectors said, but Martin escaped, leaving behind a box. The contents: rotten fish, spoiled lettuce and tomatoes and half a banana.

Another time, investigators said they kept Martin talking on a phone for two hours while others tried to trace the call, only to discover that Martin had called from a cellular phone in a vehicle.

Authorities say Martin also collects aliases, further complicating investigations. Last week, the state Department of Motor Vehicles arrested Martin on five felony perjury charges stemming from the use of fake driver’s licenses, said Phil Chlopek, a DMV senior special investigator.

Officials still are mystified as to exactly what methods Martin uses to acquire his property. They suspect he spots run-down properties tied up in probate or in foreclosure; some of the property titles are clouded and others list what authorities suspect are Martin’s aliases.

Investigators say they are able to spot Martin’s arrival in a neighborhood because, as soon as he lays claim to a property, he and his workers immediately begin carting in junk and old vehicles, often at night. That is what investigators say he did at three properties near the 10900 block of Hesby and Otsego streets.

‘All Sorts of Objects’

“He brought trucks in . . . and just unloaded all sorts of objects and trash,” said Don Eitner, whose home adjoins two of Martin’s properties.

Neighbors began calling the Fire Department to complain and presented Wachs’ office with a petition requesting action.

The Fire Department got involved when Martin’s junk began spilling onto the curbs, authorities said. Before city crews cleared it out, only a skinny person walking sideways could enter the house because of the debris, Theule said. The house first had to be fumigated because of the stench of rotten meat; among the items removed were 1,000 gallons of flammable solvents and paints, Theule said.

Martin said he has sued the city in connection with the cleanup of one of his Hesby Street properties. He said the city crews confiscated valuable property, including tools, which now prevents him from cleaning up his properties.

Tenants Don’t Mind

The only people interviewed who do not seem to mind Martin’s messes are his tenants. Authorities say Martin often rents to illegal aliens, people who speak no English or those who do not seem to mind being surrounded by filth.

One of Martin’s renters is Ricky Santiago, a cook in a steakhouse, who pays $350 a month to live in the apartment building on Vineland where most of the other tenants are inanimate objects. On a recent afternoon, Santiago cracked open his door to talk. The screens covering his windows and door were broken and the wood was peeling from his front door.

“It’s dirty outside but it’s OK with me,” Santiago said.

“He’s a very nice man, but he just has a problem,” said another Martin tenant who did not give his name for fear of being evicted.

One reason why it took so long for authorities to begin taking action against Martin was that no one realized at first that so many complaints about junky properties in North Hollywood could be traced to the same man.

Aliases Tracked

Court records indicated that the properties belonged to several owners. But it gradually became apparent to investigators and neighbors that the same man owned the properties, or at least was squatting on them. The DMV was called in to help track down the aliases.

A computer check revealed Martin was using at least five phony driver’s licenses, Chlopek said. Some of the names he allegedly used were David Allen Markel, Bob Baker Goodart and B. B. Goodart, he said.

The trial on all the city charges could take all summer, Rocke said. Most of the city charges carry a maximum penalty of $1,000 and/or six months in County Jail.

Martin, however, contends that, because authorities keep filing cases against him and throwing him in jail--his last stint was last week before he posted bail on the DMV charges--he is unable to clean up his properties.

“You can’t do anything when you’re in jail,” Martin complained.