He’s Vigilante in the War on Street Grime

Robert Casteel is a vigilante of sorts, one with a sweeping desire to rid city streets of the trash and blackish, odorous scum that collects in gutters.

And he’s got more than a broom at his disposal.

Casteel commands his own 2,000-gallon water tanker truck, equipped with gutter-level sprayers that can flush out even the toughest curb stains with reclaimed water from a sewage treatment plant. On most mornings, he cruises up and down North Hollywood streets, putting his unusual obsession into action.

“I just can’t stand to see trash and guck on the street. So I do something about it. I clean it,” he said.

Casteel, 40, who has the lean build and ultra-short haircut of a military man, has been a self-styled neighborhood street cleaner for more than a year--to the delight of residents and surprise of city officials.

“I’m not aware of anyone else quite like this. He seems unique to me,” said Patrick Howard, director of the Los Angeles Department of Public Works street maintenance bureau. “There certainly isn’t any law against cleaning streets.”

From all appearances, Casteel seems like a regular working guy.

For 23 years, he’s lived in the same modest stucco house in the 5500 block of Elmer Street, which is lined with a mishmash of bungalows and apartment buildings. He has worked as a construction laborer and now buys and sells trucks and other heavy equipment--a trade that enabled him to buy his $25,000 water truck.

His Other Side

The other side of Casteel is the guy who likes to work up a sweat cleaning out gutters in his free time.

First, from the helm of his big, white truck, he pushes the button that activates the sprayers and slowly travels dirty roads.

Then, grungy push broom in hand, he leaps from the truck and begins sweeping up sludge, pushing it into a giant dustpan-like sheath of thick plastic.

He keeps a trash barrel on the passenger side of the truck to collect the debris for later dumping.

He does it all for free and even takes requests from friends and neighbors. And like the sweet sound of chimes from an ice cream truck, the sound of gushing water from Casteel’s tanker brings out residents eager to greet and thank him.

“It’s a miracle, it’s a miracle!” exclaimed Grace Giraco, 49, a 13-year-resident of the 11200 block of Cumpston Street. For weeks, she said, a thick puddle of stagnant water and trash had built up at her street corner. The more she cleans it, the more debris seems to flow back, she said.

“I don’t believe my eyes. I keep calling the city, but they never come,” Giraco said. “This man, he is a good man.”

As Casteel repeatedly swooshed blackish slime down the Cumpston Street gutter and into the drain, resident Doreen Alrich was coming home.

“You know, he’s gotten rid of the mosquito problem we had here,” Alrich said. “The city comes by and just sweeps up a mess. He cleans.”

These kinds of compliments and sidewalk attention seem to fuel Casteel’s cleaning mania.

The more that neighbors come out, the broader the smile on his face becomes and the harder he pushes that broom.

His wife of 10 years, Susan, says her husband does not want to be a “sideshow” but instead believes that dirty streets are an “environmental issue that he can do something about.”

Casteel said trash on the street “suggests a lesser quality of life.” He figures that if people see him cleaning they will think twice before littering or dumping motor oil in the gutter.

“I used to get mad when I saw dirty streets,” he said. “Now I hop in my truck and go and pick up a load of water.”

In keeping with his environmentally sound habits during a time of citywide water conservation efforts, Casteel has worked out a special arrangement to fill his truck with purified waste water from the Los Angeles-Glendale sewage treatment facility near Griffith Park.

Robert Birk, the plant manager, said the reclaimed water is released into the Los Angeles River, except for irrigation of freeway landscaping, use at a Glendale steam plant and by Casteel. He said state and county laws allow the water to be used for “anything up to and including recreational uses,” such as in man-made lakes and ponds.

“There’s no problem with using it to clean gutters,” Birk said.

So with a free, full tank of water and a full tank of gas that costs him more than $300 a month, Casteel hits the dirty streets with fervor.

“Some people race speedboats, some people sky-dive or try to break the sound barrier,” he said. “Whatever you do, you have to be intense about it.”

Including cleaning gutters.