Neighbors Seek End to Overcrowding in Homes

Residents of some Thousand Oaks neighborhoods where homes are used as boardinghouses are drafting an ordinance aimed at banning overcrowding in single-family neighborhoods.

Residents such as Shannon Young call the houses that contain six or more tenants suburban “nightmares” that neighbors have tried to eradicate for nearly four years.

Young, who lives on Calle Tulipan, complains of five homes in her neighborhood that are occupied by up to 20 people each, some living in campers and using back yards as bathrooms. But the overcrowded homes are spread throughout the city, she said.

Citizens on the 10-member committee will begin meeting next Tuesday in an effort to stiffen city code enforcement after the City Council last month was unable to enact a measure that would prevent single-family houses from being rented out to large numbers of people.

“We feel like we’re in the middle of this nightmare,” said Young, 31, a mother of four. “We hope to come up with an ordinance that has enough teeth and bite to be able to close down some of these houses.”

Young was among a group of about 30 people who have asked the City Council to crack down on landlords and homeowners who allow houses to be used as hotels and boardinghouses.

Neighbors cite trash-filled yards, lack of parking and loud music as some of the main problems.

“You feel like you’re under siege,” Young said. “My son ran into our house hysterically last week, because there was a group of men standing near our mailbox. He felt threatened.”

Since neighbors began complaining a month ago, some tenants of overcrowded homes have tried to clean up yards and hide campers that have been used as living quarters, said Ron Keesling, 42, a neighbor on Calle Tulipan.

“They know people are upset at the way things have been going,” Keesling said.

Keesling said he has seen a house two doors down deteriorate steadily in the past four years. Other occupants have added rooms illegally, converted living rooms into bedrooms and used garages as bedrooms, he said.

Councilman Lawrence Horner, who helped draft the failed ordinance, said it was an attempt to resolve complaints by homeowners, real estate agents and landlords about lack of enforcement.

Last month, neighbors took issue with the proposed ordinance, which tried to tackle overcrowding problems by limiting occupancy in a residence to six adults. But it did not limit the number of children.

“With six adults, each adult could have two or three kids,” Horner said. “That numbers game isn’t going to be acceptable in the eyes of a lot of people.”

City Atty. Mark G. Sellers has said the current ordinance is unconstitutional, because it limits occupancy to families and groups of no more than five people. The legal definition of families is unclear, he said.

Horner, explaining opposition to the ordinance, said some homeowners protested attempts by local governments to regulate the use of their homes.

Some landlords rent out rooms to make mortgage payments, said Jerry Krantz, president of the Conejo Valley Board of Realtors. Krantz, who has also been appointed to the committee, predicted disagreement within the committee over an alternative to the city’s draft.

“It’s going to be hard for those 10 people to agree on what constitutes a single-family residence--how many unrelated people are going to be permitted to live in a home,” he said.

Krantz acknowledged that some landlords flout the law, and neighbors have been unable to force the city to evict them.

However, tenants of one allegedly overcrowded home on Calle Tulipan said it has been difficult finding housing they can afford.

Carlos Gonzalez lives in a house in the 600 block of Calle Tulipan with nine other tenants, including two children. Each adult pays about $100 a month to live there, he said.

“What can I do?” said Gonzalez, 28. “I have nowhere to go.”

Nancy Nazario, an ombudsman for the homeless with county Public Social Services, said there are about 3,000 homeless in the county, but about five times that many live in overcrowded conditions, because they are not able to find affordable housing in Ventura County.

“Places like Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks have been built as suburban, commuter communities, so there aren’t a lot of older sections of town with small units in them. So people will tend to crowd up in houses,” Nazario said. “Overcrowding is one of the only options poor people have.”