In a Fix Over Repairs : Victorian home: Couple blames a vengeful ex-tenant for sicking city inspectors on them. They fear they might now lose the home.

When Phil and Ann Le Roy bought their Victorian house on 2nd Avenue, it was a dilapidated hulk inhabited by vagrants. The couple spruced up the 103-year-old structure, fixing the stairs, rewiring, and putting in new fixtures.

But they failed to get city permits for a lot of the work, and now those improvements might cause them to lose the house as San Diego inspectors move to bring the home into compliance with local codes.

The Le Roys contend they know why the city has gone over their house with a fine-toothed comb. They say that a disgruntled former tenant, who also is a San Diego-certified special building inspector, took revenge by sicking his friends at the city’s Building Inspection Department on them.

The city last December cited the Le Roys for not having permits for a slew of improvements to the house, some dating back more than 50 years. They were not cited for any violations of health and safety codes.

Between the cost of getting engineers out to study the improvements made on the house and the fines accrued from not having the proper permits for construction, the Le Roys fear they will lose their home.

Last July, the Le Roys rented a room to Richard Lee Poet. But several bounced checks and a missed rental payment later they decided to show him the door, the Le Roys said.

“He didn’t cause any particular problems, and when he left the place he didn’t leave it in shambles. He simply decided not to pay his rent,” Phil Le Roy said.

But after Poet left in November, still having not paid $285 in back rent, the Le Roys said he swore he would get back at them, and they say they have proof that he did.

“I have contacted a friend of mine in the city Building Inspection Department. He has pulled the permits on your property and the violations will cost you thousands of dollars,” according to a letter provided by the Le Roys dated December 10 and signed Richard Lee Poet.

The letter went on to threaten that if the Le Roys showed up at a December 11 municipal court hearing to determine whether Poet owed the Le Roys any money, “my friend will be on your doorstep tomorrow afternoon. . . . Get out your checkbook.”

At the hearing, the court ordered Poet to pay the $285 in rent, plus $115 in court costs and attorney fees.

And indeed, that afternoon, a city building inspector came knocking on the Le Roys’ door.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Ann Le Roy.

Last month, the Le Roys filed a claim against the city for what they estimated the value of the house to be, $750,000, and $50,000 in emotional distress, alleging that they had been singled out by the city when Poet used his contacts in the Building Inspection Department to take revenge on them.

But the city says it has done no wrong.

“I don’t think there is any issue of special treatment being accorded to the complaint,” said deputy city attorney Rudolf Hradecky. “It’s a normal responsibility for a public agency to inspect and investigate and see that corrections are made for any building code violations.”

“There is nothing sinister in that,” Hradecky said.

Neither Poet nor his attorney could be reached for comment.

Poet has been neither an employee of the city nor under contract with the city. Rather, he is one of more than 200 special inspectors certified by the city to observe construction at a property and make sure the work is done in conformance to the approved drawings and plans, said Tina Christiansen, city building inspector director.

“(Special inspectors) are basically observing certain pieces of a building project and providing a report to the city,” Christiansen said.

The city responded to Poet’s complaint about the Le Roy house four days after he called, which is within the department’s performance goal of responding to every complaint within five days, Christiansen said.

Officials in the code enforcement division of the Building Inspection Department said they knew of no special connections between Poet and either inspectors or supervisors.

“As far as we know, he never came in contact with our inspectors and code enforcement people or the supervisors,” said Paul Elias, acting deputy director of code enforcement.

The extent and type of the violations cited, however, are ridiculous, the Le Roys contend.

“Essentially, we are in a position where the city and its inspectors have written a violation notice that is impossible to comply with,” Phil Le Roy said.

The city cited the Le Roys for not having permits for erecting a retaining wall topped by a wood fence, constructing several cement structural columns, building an extension on the first floor and installing a seven-step stairway to the front porch.

And while the city has not yet imposed any of the fines, the Le Roys could be charged as much as $2,500 for every day they are not in compliance, up to $100,000, the city said.

In order to comply, the Le Roys would have to hire an architect and an engineer to inspect the improvements, draw up the plans and calculations, file the proper permit applications and pay penalties for not having the permits originally.

The Le Roys also did not have permits for the installation of two water heaters, the construction of a dry wall partition on the third floor, several plumbing alterations, and “extensive alterations to the electrical system of the building,” the city said.

But the Le Roys insist that some of the work being cited, such as the extension and some of the electrical work, had been done before they arrived in 1982, and even predate the city’s records, which go back to 1955.

They also say they have blueprints of the construction of the wall from 1985, apparently signed by Ron Buckley of the city’s Historical Site Board, and permits for the cement columns, but that the city has lost the files.

“They’re not talking about safety violations or not building things to code, they are just talking about permit violations,” Phil Le Roy said.

But a violation is a violation, the city said.

“A lot of people run red lights, too, but you still deal with the violation when it occurs,” Christiansen said.

The city said it has no qualms about how it was alerted to the alleged permit violations at the Le Roy home, adding that it was treated like any of the other 2,715 complaints to which it responded last year.

“We have people complain for all sorts of reasons,” including evicted tenants seeking revenge and bickering neighbors, Christiansen said. “Really what we do is go out and find out if there is a violation, and we don’t deal with the motive of the complainant.”

The Le Roys asked Ray Huffman, a San Diego construction consultant specializing in apartment buildings, to look at the house after they received the violation notices, and considered razing the house to build condos.

“It’s definitely an aged property, like a great deal of what’s in that area. It’s not unusual,” said Huffman, who has been in the business for 38 years.

The city was “capricious, arbitrary and heavy-handed” in many of the citations of the Le Roy house, Huffman said.

“Yes, there’s been some violations in the sense that they have done some repair work without permits, which is an ongoing everyday situation in the county. I’m totally convinced that what the Le Roys have done so far is more than satisfactory for the health and safety of anyone living there,” Huffman said.

“It’s overkill for them to have to go out and have an engineer to analyze the information, in some cases. It would cost them thousands upon thousands of dollars to do that, and I’m not sure it would accomplish anything,” Huffman said.

“If the direction of the (Building Inspection) Department was for the inspectors to go out and cite everyone with permit violations, almost everybody would have some kind of violation if the building is 25 years old or older,” he said.

The Le Roys say they certainly are more cautious about prospective tenants now. Poet had been referred to them by a previous renter, the Le Roys said.

“Previous to him we had been doing quite careful application checks on everyone who is a stranger. Now we do strict credit checks on everyone,” Phil Le Roy said. “We were kind of just less cautious with him simply because he was referred to us on a personal recommendation.”