Owner Cited Over Workers Inhabiting Barn : Oxnard: Officials order the woman to clean up the structure, which farm workers were using as a home even though it lacked indoor plumbing and gas.

The owner of a barn north of Oxnard that was used as a communal shelter by up to 60 people--many of them Mexican farm workers living in filthy and unsafe conditions--has been cited for 15 violations of fire, environmental, health and zoning codes, officials said Thursday.

Jerry Perry, district supervisor for the county Building and Safety division, said inspectors who visited the barn in the 2900 block of Vineyard Avenue earlier this week found conditions among the worst they have seen.

“It’s the worst that I heard of,” Perry said.

The owner, Maria Fernandez of Camarillo, has been ordered to clean up the barn and keep it unoccupied or face criminal charges, officials said. Fernandez was unavailable for comment Thursday.

The barn is one of the most unusual structures found to be housing people in the county, Perry said. Previously, code enforcement officers have found people living illegally in garages, he said.

“One thing is they don’t make that much money, and they’ll find somebody that’ll give them a cheap place to live,” Perry said.

Dwellers of the barn had been using the wooden, uninsulated structure as a home, even though it lacked indoor plumbing and gas.

Frank Ugolini, a zoning enforcement officer with the Planning Department, said about 30 men were in the barn when he visited, cooking tortillas and lounging on the mattresses that lined the bare walls. He said there may have been more tenants living there at night.

Although there were no families present during the visit, inspectors from the Social Services Department had been called on a complaint that children were also housed there, Ugolini said.

“It could be as many as 60 in the evening. I don’t know that anybody really knows the exact number,” Ugolini said.

The property has been zoned for commercial purposes, and a dwelling is not allowed, Ugolini said.

The barn had apparently been once used as a storage site. In one corner were discarded paint containers and a bottle of the chemical pesticide malathion.

Bob Williamson, a supervisor in the county Environmental Health Department, said the people were living in unsavory conditions that could lead to serious health problems.

“The people who were renting the barn had illegally constructed some outhouses, dug holes in the ground for use in going to the bathroom,” Williamson said.

Although county officials had razed the illegal outhouses and ordered the people living there to leave, two men were found there Thursday sleeping on filthy mattresses.

Jackets and other pieces of clothing hung on rope strung across the barn or on nails.

Outside the barn, flies gathered near a spot where the ground still reeked of urine and feces from pits that had been dug for use as toilets.

Although electricity had been installed in the wooden barn, tenants had used propane gas to cook food. Three refrigerators were pushed up to mattresses that sat next to an open garbage can.

In spite of the filth, in one corner a pile of blankets had been neatly folded and stacked in a cardboard box.

Pancho Cervantes, 20, one of the tenants, said officials had ordered all the people to leave. He said many of the tenants who lived there are Mexican farm workers who could find no other place to live.

“It’s a mess here,” Cervantes said, looking around. “It’s not good.”

Cervantes said he came to Ventura County legally with Immigration and Naturalization Service documents allowing him to work as a temporary agricultural worker. Many of the other tenants of the barn are also legal workers, he said.

He decided to live in the barn with an uncle and cousins because he had no money for an apartment, he said.

Bernardo Castro, 29, another tenant, said he had been living in the barn for more than a month while trying to find work in the strawberry fields.

“I came to pick strawberries, but there’s no work,” Castro said.