Old Heave-Ho : Landlord Tries to Evict Nonagenarians in Dispute Over $40 Bill to Fix Doorknob

In the 25 years that they have lived in the same apartment, the ladies of Ambrose Avenue have paid their rent to seven different landlords--three in the last three years.

Some of them were wonderful. Some were adequate. One put up a “For Sale” sign so huge that it blocked the front window where they sit and survey their Los Feliz neighborhood.

And a couple of them--including the current one, No. 7--have wanted to evict them. This time, the dispute is over a $40 doorknob.

Dorothy Putnam is 92 and Lois Mercer is a week shy of 94; Illinois-born, both of them. They are not helpless, but they are certainly not as vigorous as they were in the 1920s, when this triplex apartment was built and Putnam was a pioneering local “chauffeuse” with her own Hupmobile, a woman who beat the men in long-distance driving races.

So when the doorknob between the kitchen and service porch broke off one recent Friday morning, they couldn’t open the door. They had phoned their landlord before, like the time the heater had to be restarted. This time, according to the women’s Legal Aid attorney, Barbara Blanco, “they called the landlord all morning, and when they say they called all morning, they mean they called all morning,” and got no answer.

And they were upset at the thought of spending the long holiday weekend locked out from their refrigerator.

“Probably you or I would have gotten a screwdriver and jammed it (to open the door),” Blanco said. “But to them it was a very real emergency.”

So they called in a handyman to fix the knob. It cost $40. Five days later, when they sent in the check for their $221.50-a-month rent-controlled apartment, they deducted the $40 repair fee, something permitted by state code under certain circumstances, Blanco said. They did it once before, when someone smashed a window above Mercer’s day-bed.

But the check was returned, uncashed, with a three-day notice to pay the full rent or leave the premises, she said. It was sent again, and returned again, this time by the landlord’s attorney. And now, Blanco said, the women face eviction over the unpaid rent.

The women have offered to split the $40 doorknob cost with the landlord from their $800-a-month combined Social Security and disability income. Blanco, who represented the two during an earlier eviction effort, believes the landlord is using the doorknob issue to free up a rent-controlled apartment.

“Obviously we’re not fighting over $40 here; it costs $49 to file a Municipal Court complaint (for eviction),” she said.

Richard J. Meehan, attorney for the property owner, Harry Kantzabedian, said he would not comment on the proceedings, but “I have been speaking with the attorney (Blanco) and will continue to do so” toward resolving the matter.

Added Meehan, “I think the code (governing repairs and rent deductions) speaks for itself and the facts will be developed.”

In a January letter, the landlord noted chores he had done before and wrote, “I would like to let you notice that without my approval you can’t do any repair yourself and send the expenses to me . . . you should call us before changing the doorknob.”

Dorothy Putnam is her father’s daughter, and her father, she said, was a pal of Teddy Roosevelt. Her manner is still as salty as it was in 1921, when she drove to first place in a Los Angeles-to-San Francisco race on whiskey and hot water. In a living room adorned with crocheted coverlets and glass bibelots, Putnam keeps within reach a redwood billy club, a hefty souvenir from long-ago Los Angeles County Sheriff Eugene Biscailuz.

All this makes her mad, but she supposes that Blanco is right, and they’ll have to settle it in court, with a jury trial. “Well, I’m not allowed to shoot.”

Putnam can race a visitor through her scrapbooks as she once drove down coarse roads to win a 1922 race in Wrightwood; the loving cup stands on a shelf behind her.

There she is, in pinafore and Mary Pickford curls, as a 4-year-old in Chicago. That’s her in 1918, in custom-tailored uniform, probably Los Angeles’ first licensed woman chauffeur, renting her $10-a-day services to drive her five-passenger Hupmobile, or tending the Packards and Pierce-Arrows of the rich and famous. That’s her in World War II, a lieutenant, training drivers for the Women’s Ambulance and Transport Corps. There she is, driving a truck, one of her postwar jobs.

Putnam is still a woman who runs on wheels: the wheels in her head, she said, pointing to her close-shorn hair, and her wheelchair. But moving to a new place is one journey she does not want to make.

Here, the neighbors know them, look out for them, do their shopping for them. Their doctor works down the street, and drops by.

“This place is so handy to the market,” Mercer said, “and our neighbors are so nice about taking care of things for us.”

“Where would we make friends?” Putnam asked. “We haven’t 40 more years to live.”