Rats, Roaches and Revolt : Tenants of 2 Run-Down Buildings on Golden Avenue Withhold Rent in Protest Over Living Conditions

Maggie Adame woke up one recent morning and found a cockroach in her ear. Her 8-month-old boy has a roach bite on the cheek. And the people across the way in apartment No. 4 complain that mice crawl out of the furnace in what serves as both living room and bedroom for two adults and a 4-month-old girl.

The residents of 526 and 582 Golden Ave. live in twin beige stucco buildings with peeling paint, holes in the walls, cockroaches that seem to breed in the woodwork and, they say, an assortment of rats, mice, ants, fleas, mold, broken smoke alarms and exposed electrical wires.

They are like thousands of other welfare mothers, immigrants and laborers who live in the city’s stock of decayed and neglected apartments. What makes the people along Golden Avenue different is that they have declared war.

On July 1, 18 of the 20 tenants went on strike, vowing to with hold rents that range from $390 to $450 a month until their landlord, Henry Horst, makes the buildings livable.

Horst, a retired chemical company worker who lives in Rialto, said he keeps his buildings in the best shape he can, considering the rent he charges. He said his tenants are poor housekeepers who cram too many people into apartments that measure 130 square feet.

Asked to account for the roaches that swarmed across the stove and kitchen cupboards in No. 6, where Francisco Cruz and his wife have lived for just one month, Horst said the building is just old.

“A lot of old buildings have roaches,” he said. “This building has always had roaches, ever since I owned it. I make sure my apartments are in good shape before people move in. A lot of the people here are not very good housekeepers.”

On a hot evening last week, the cement walkway that divides the two buildings was redolent with the smells of dinner cooking. Many of the places are small but neat, with plastic flower arrangements, lace curtains and doilies.

Inside No. 4, Elvira Vidales had just finished frying meat and potatoes with her kitchen cupboards open. That way, she said, the roaches hide from the light instead of falling into the food.

Gonzalo Alvarado, who shares the apartment with Vidales and their 4-month-old daughter, Alma, says: “I want the apartment to be fixed--the holes, the paint. The locks are no good, the smoke alarms don’t work. We wake up in the night and find roaches on the baby.”

Alvarado earns $600 a month delivering ice. Nearly $400 of that goes to rent. That means they live in poverty, but it shouldn’t mean they live in filth, said Kate McClatchy of the Long Beach Housing Action Assn., a grass-roots group that advocates tenants’ rights and low-cost housing.

Attorneys from the Legal Aid Foundation of Long Beach have agreed to represent Golden Avenue tenants should Horst take them to court. As of last week, Horst had filed lawsuits against four tenants, and 13 more are anticipated, said the foundation’s executive director, Toby Rothschild.

If no settlement is reached, a judge will review the living conditions and decide what rent the tenants should pay, Rothschild said.

Meanwhile, the tenants have reported Horst to the Long Beach Department of Health and Human Services, which sent a letter requesting that the repairs be made. If they are not, a health inspector will be sent to the scene and, in extreme cases, prosecution for health and safety violations can result, environmental health officer Donald Cillay said.

McClatchy said the rent strike is the first of many tenant-rights actions planned along Golden Avenue, a street filled with children and run-down apartments that backs up against the Long Beach Freeway near downtown.

The blocks of Golden from 4th to 7th streets are scheduled for redevelopment, offering landlords potentially big profits and little incentive to maintain buildings that might one day be leveled, McClatchy said.

A park is tentatively scheduled to be built on the land across the street from striking tenants. Such an improvement could substantially increase the value of the property on which the buildings sit and make the buildings themselves almost worthless, she said.

“That park,” McClatchy said, “is going to be real nice for the white yuppies who move into the downtown area. It won’t necessarily be available to the people who have populated this area for so many years. We are not against more green space, but it doesn’t have to be done at the expense of poor people.”