Simi Accused of Ignoring Overcrowding in Rentals : Neighbors Say Houses Are Illegally Packed

A prominent Simi Valley businessman owns rundown suburban homes that are being used as illegal boardinghouses for immigrant workers, according to neighbors who say their repeated objections have been ignored by the city.

Robert C. Landegger, a real estate broker and publisher with extensive investments in rental houses, is the largest among nine property owners under scrutiny by the city, which recently opened an investigation into the matter because of a record number of citizens’ complaints, said Diane Davis-Crompton, the city’s director of environmental services.

According to complaints on file with the city, as well as interviews with neighbors, the houses owned by Landegger and others serve as residences for 10 to 50 laborers, mostly Latino men, who work as gardeners, housekeepers, construction workers and other modestly paid positions in the service and agricultural industries.

While the city zoning code requires a permit for houses where six or more unrelated people pay a fee to live, tenants say they cannot afford to move and city officials suggest their often illegal immigration status prevents them from exposing their living conditions and forcing landlords to comply with the law.

‘Like Piranhas’

“There are always people who, like piranhas, will feed on unfortunate people like that,” said Simi Valley Councilman Glen McAdoo, the most outspoken council member on the issue.

“These illegal aliens who come over are just seeking a better way of life. Whether illegal or not, the truth of the matter is there are people who will take advantage of them and take them for every cent they’ve got, and who are they going to complain to?”

Landegger denied knowing about the conditions at his properties and called himself a victim of unscrupulous tenants.

Despite Simi Valley’s recent efforts to notify landlords of complaints and seek voluntary compliance with the law, neighbors say they have been telling officials for a year or more about the problem without results--publicly at City Council meetings and privately in phone calls to police and other municipal offices.

“I think that because an influential person is owning the house, the city has done nothing,” said a neighbor of 1988 Morley St., an alleged boardinghouse owned by the president of a local escrow company and his wife.

Residents of Graham Street expressed similar frustrations.

Frequent Complaints

“I’ve given them more license plate numbers than you can shake a fist at,” said Ginger Trematore, who claims she has been telling authorities about a Landegger-owned house at 1240 Graham St. for three years.

City officials including Mayor Greg Stratton and Davis-Crompton and her staff insist that evidence, not influence, is the only factor they have considered in pursuing crowding complaints. If the city has been slow to respond, they said, it is because such complaints are difficult to prove without tenants’ cooperation.

“We don’t take that particularity--influence--into consideration, and we enforce the laws across the board,” said Jocelyn Reed, deputy director of environmental services and supervisor of the department’s code-enforcement unit. “Our main concern is obtaining enough evidence to obtain a conviction if we pursue the matter in a court situation.”

Reed said that since the city responds to individual complaints, she was unable to estimate how widespread the boardinghouses are.

Landegger, 55, is the largest landlord under investigation. He owns at least 77 properties in Simi Valley, according to Davis-Crompton. Landegger is a former chairman of Simi Valley Bank and former president of the local Board of Realtors, according to “Who’s Who in California.” He operates under the names Capital Real Estate, Cal-West Realty, the Landegger Finance Co., and a partnership called Mosland--all of which of own rentals.

Claims Unaware

Landegger, who owns two houses under investigation by the city, at 1663 Anderson St. and 2234 Calahan Ave., said he had been unaware of the overcrowding.

“I feel that I am a victim,” Landegger said in a prepared statement. “I rent a house to someone, the rental agreement is very clear and it is explained very clearly to the tenant that they are the only ones to occupy the property. And if one moves, all must move. And no one else is allowed to stay at the property.

“I have had to evict tenants I have found in violation of this, and will continue to do so.” He declined to comment beyond the prepared statement.

Landegger also manages the property at 1988 Morley St. that has come to the city’s attention as an alleged boardinghouse. Property owner Mike Schweitzer, president of Tujunga Escrow Co., said last week he hadn’t seen the house in 10 years, and that he had no idea what was going on there.

Describing himself as an inept landlord who would just as soon forget about the property he invests in, Schweitzer said that when he received notice from the city about neighbors’ allegations, he immediately called Landegger and told him to take care of the problem.

“I’m not renting it as a boardinghouse, and I was not aware all those people were living there,” said Schweitzer. “When we signed the rental agreement, there were two couples, referred by Capital.”

Friends of Gallegly

Schweitzer and his wife Marcie are longtime friends of U.S. Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) and his wife, Janice, who used to work as Schweitzer’s secretary in the escrow business. The two couples own investment property together including rental houses at 1353 and 1365 Agnew St. Neither of those houses are named in crowding complaints, and the congressman has no interest in the property on Morley Street.

The Schweitzers and the Galleglys also share ownership of an office building at 1791 Erringer Road, which houses Gallegy’s campaign headquarters as well as Landegger’s chief real estate company, Capital Real Estate.

Gallegly, who opposes granting amnesty to illegal aliens and favors criminal penalties for their employers, said he had no knowledge of problems involving houses owned by his associates. The conditions, as described by a reporter, should be corrected, he said.

“I don’t care whose name is on the ownership title,” he said. “I believe people who break the law should be held accountable.”

Both he and Schweitzer said they could understand neighbors’ anger.

“I don’t blame them,” Schweitzer said. “They’re right. It’s a single-family house.”

Communal Existence

Neighbors describe scenes reminiscent of rural migrant workers’ camps: trucks making daily pickups of workers, a change in residents every few months and a communal existence that generally clashes with suburban sensibilities.

“Forty to 50 Mexicans are renting rooms” says a complaint against the Schweitzers’ house on Morley Street. “Isn’t this considered boarding in a residential area?”

“Drop-off for illegal aliens, people living in garage,” says a complaint about a Landegger-owned house at 1663 Anderson St. “Twenty to 35 persons living in a three-bedroom house . . . drop off for dayworkers,” says another.

What bothers them the most, neighbors say, is that the tenants are often large groups of single men rather than families. Parties, profanity and public urination are among the disturbances reported by neighbors, and women said they felt threatened by stares and off-hand sexual remarks.

“I used to do yardwork in front in shorts sometimes and haven’t been able to do that because the last time I did it they started whistling,” said the Morley Street resident, who did not want to be identified. She said she called the police and was told there was nothing they could do unless the men touched her.

A resident of Graham Street, Rosie Garcia, said her four daughters no longer feel comfortable sitting or working in their yard because of the men living in a Landegger-owned house across the street at 1240 Graham St. Last Father’s Day, the girls gave their father a security screen door.

‘Not Families Anymore’

“I mean they’re my race, they’re Mexican, but it’s the idea of their not being families anymore,” Garcia said in explaining her objections.

Moorpark also has experienced a rash of complaints about overcrowded tract houses and their byproducts--noise, congested residential streets, clashing life styles.

Moorpark police warned citizens in July against driving through Dorothy Avenue in that city’s old downtown section after a street brawl between residents of a single-family house at 348 Dorothy Ave. and those of an allegedly overcrowded residence at 333 Dorothy Ave.

The fight erupted after an Anglo resident reportedly became angry over an insult to his wife by Latino neighbors. A series of similar disturbances in the same tract has prompted the Moorpark City Council to hire an additional code enforcer and request stepped-up police patrols.

‘Crime Happens’

Many homeowners said racial prejudice played no role in their complaints. “I don’t really care what nationality these folks are,” said Theresa Rini of Moorpark. “I think problems start occurring when you stuff a bunch of bodies into a house. I think crime happens because of it.”

In Simi Valley, a second Morley Street resident said her home was burglarized about 18 months ago and that many of her belongings were found by police in a boardinghouse on another street. She said police told her the merchandise was being resold in Mexico.

“The police were aware,” the resident said, “they knew exactly where to go and when to go and had been watching them.”

Simi Valley Police Chief Paul Miller said he was unaware of crowding as a problem. “I don’t recall that issue coming in,” Miller said of reports he receives from the field.

A Landegger-owned house at 1551 Sitka Ave. in Simi Valley was the scene of a fatal stabbing last month, although the assistant district attorney handling the case said it appeared to be a premeditated crime and not the result of a spontaneous fight related to crowding. Two suspects are in custody at the Ventura County Jail and a preliminary hearing has been set for Oct. 12.

4-Room House

A tenant and the apparent matriarch of the Sitka Avenue household where the stabbing occurred said 13 Guatemalan immigrants lived in the small, four-room house at the time of the killing. In reporting the incident, police themselves described the single-family suburban residence as a boardinghouse.

The woman, who identified herself only as Octavilla, said seven renters have moved since then and that she would move too if she could find another affordable place. A baby-sitter who earns $150 a week, Octavilla said the six remaining tenants share a monthly rent of $975, the same rate charged at other Landegger-owned houses visited by The Times.

One such house, at 1305 Agnew St. in Simi Valley, has been missing a bathroom sink for months while its tenants--an undetermined number of Mexican men ranging in age from 18 to 25--have been shaving and brushing their teeth in the kitchen, said a visiting friend, carpenter Marcelino Silva.

The tenants--who included a fast-food worker, a janitor and a gardener--said they were reluctant to criticize their landlord and declined to allow a reporter inside the house, whose peeling paint, dirt yard and rotting woodwork was typical of some two dozen Landegger-owned houses viewed by The Times.

“It’s a disaster,” said Silva.

Regional Trend

The overcrowding complaints are part of a regional trend, according to Ventura County labor experts, who say a dearth of low-income housing coupled with dwindling ranch-provided housing is creating a new version of labor camps in the suburbs.

“The ranching community is basically getting out of the housing business altogether,” said Jesse Ornelas, project manager for the Cabrillo Economic Development Corp., a private nonprofit group trying to develop affordable housing in Ventura County. “So what occurs is they are forced into the outlying communities nearby the agricultural industry in the county.”

Families are doubling and tripling up, Ornelas noted, while groups of single men band together to share expenses.

Jack Lloyd, retired manager of the now-defunct Coastal Growers Assn. in Oxnard, a citrus-growers’ cooperative that ran a large labor camp, said the high cost of insurance and construction prevents ranchers from building housing for workers. Farm workers also prefer to find their own homes as they settle here and apply for citizenship instead of returning to their native countries, Lloyd said.

‘Violates Every Rule’

Speaking in general about the suburban labor camp trend, Lloyd said: “The city doesn’t even want to admit it exists because it violates every rule in the book.”

Simi Valley’s action has mainly consisted of writing letters to Landegger, the Schweitzers and the other landlords asking for voluntary compliance in applying for boardinghouse permits. The cases won’t be referred to the city attorney for prosecution until a third letter has been sent without improvement, said Davis-Crompton.

Simi Valley has referred only one case to the city attorney’s office, a house at 1425 Sycamore St. where the tenants, all Anglo, are cooperating with the city in filing complaints against their landlords, said Reed of the code-enforcement unit. The landlords of record are Kerry Lynch and Wendy Teeter of Simi Valley.

Other landlords whose properties have generated overcrowding complaints are: Ignacio Torres of Regan Circle in Simi Valley, for a house at 1572 Dakin St.; Rosendo and Lorrain Cueto of Fullerton, for a house at 1632 Casarin Ave.; Anooshavan and Roobina Sarkisian of LaVerne, for a house at 1710 Patricia Ave.; Cynthia Caiazzo of Ventura Avenue in Simi Valley, for a house at 1481 First St., and Maximo and Gloria Vizcardo of Fallon Circle in Simi Valley, for a house at 1684 Sutter St.

Day-Care Probe

In an unrelated matter, a couple on Hemway Court is under investigation for running a day-care center in their home without a permit.

Reed said the city has been doing all it can to obtain voluntary compliance by landlords because illegal boardinghouse violations are difficult to prosecute. While a standard building and housing code used by Simi Valley calls for a minimum 300 square feet per resident, Reed said the city had elected not to enforce the regulation because it could hurt families with children living in small, older houses or condominiums.

In addition, liberalized legal definitions of what constitutes a family, stringent rules for obtaining search warrants to inspect the houses, and a lack of cooperation from fearful residents all make boardinghouse cases tough to prove in court, she said.

As several city officials and field experts noted, there is the prospect of putting people out on the street and, in trying to cope with overcrowding, only contributing to homelessness.

Lloyd said: “It’s a bull they don’t want to fight with.”