Owner Rejects City’s Offer to Rebuild Duplex : Camarillo: A woman whose own debris forced her to move off her property said she could not live with the loan conditions.

A woman whose residence was condemned as a health hazard declared Tuesday that she would rather live on the streets than agree to the city’s terms to rebuild her duplex.

Kelton Roberts, 64, who had collected so much debris at both units of the duplex that she was forced to move out, rejected on Tuesday the city’s offer for a no-interest, 15-year loan to repair the roof and restore the gutted interior.

Roberts, who said her pack-rat tendencies are the result of a psychological affliction called obsessive compulsive disorder, said, “I just couldn’t live with” some of the city’s conditions on the loan. She told reporters at a press conference at the Camarillo Senior Center that she objected to a requirement that city officials be allowed to inspect the property with only a 24-hour written notice.

“They are terrified I’ll start piling things up again,” she said.

According to the terms of the city’s condemnation order, Roberts, because she refused the loan, has 30 days to put the uninhabitable structure up for sale. The duplex is surrounded by a chain-link fence that prohibits anyone from entering. She has lived on the streets of Camarillo for more than a year.

The city will demolish the structure if she fails to meet the deadline, Assistant City Manager Larry Davis said.

“That would resolve the public hazard problem,” Davis said.

Roberts attributed her problems to a gypsy-like childhood involving frequent moves. Her difficulties increased after her husband’s death in 1967, she said, when she began gathering keepsakes at the duplex near Daily Drive and Mobil Avenue that inspectors said consisted mostly of trash.

By about 1985, debris was piled so high in the front and back units of the duplex that she had to move outside. Even the bathrooms were blocked and inaccessible. The weight of overgrown tree branches caused the roof to cave in, inspectors said.

Roberts camped in back of the duplex for about three years before the city inspected the property in the spring of 1988, finding rats and other vermin running among the debris. The city condemned the structure, declaring it a fire hazard and a public nuisance.

Roberts obtained a court order last year postponing the demolition date. Roberts’ son, Ronald, took over as her conservator. After more delays, the city moved in and hauled away tons of debris from inside and outside the two units.

Roberts and her son tried to find private financing to rebuild the structure so they might avoid the city’s conditions. When that fell through, she said, her son “washed his hands of the whole mess.”

The city and Roberts then worked out a tentative plan to rebuild the duplex using Community Development Block Grant funds. Rental income from the second unit would have paid off the debt of more than $70,000, city officials said.

But when the city awarded the job to a contractor, Roberts balked.

Although the city planned to rebuild the structure exactly as it had been built in 1954, Roberts contended that it would have been built to city specifications, not hers.

Also, she said Tuesday that the $150 in monthly fees attached to the loan would make it difficult for her to live on the small pension she receives.

The fees were designed to pay for property management and maintenance, including finding tenants and collecting rent.

Matthew Boden, city planning director, said he had never heard the argument that Roberts could not afford the fees.

“There was plenty of time for her to bring that to the city’s attention that that was a problem, and there is still plenty of time,” he said. “We just had to make sure we had some way of guaranteeing that duplex would not return to the condition it was in before, being used for storage and as a harborage for rats and other varmints.”

At the press conference, she thanked people who had tried to help her by donating money so she could stay a few weeks in a motel.

Roberts said she had no plans but said she would like to buy a house.

“But my realtor friends tell me I can’t buy another house in Ventura County for what I can get for mine,” she said. “This was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make.”

She has been attending weekly counseling sessions at the Camarillo Senior Center but also fears a return of her symptoms. “With obsessive compulsive disorder, the psychologists tell us there are no guarantees. It’s such a helpless feeling,” she said.