Neighborliness Is a Seldom-Heard Word at Trailer Park : Conflict: Despite repeated attempts at playing peacemaker, authorities are at a loss on how to halt Oceanside feud.

Welcome to the neighborhood from hell, where not even the cats on the block are safe any more from the wildly bitter feud among residents.

Heidi Alexander suspects her two felines that inexplicably vanished have been killed, and she shows a photo of another cat from a few doors down that somehow got itself heavily spray-painted one night.

“It’s a very sick situation,” Alexander said.

Residents in this warring corner of a mobile home park in Oceanside talk of bullet holes, broken windows, bashed cars, rampant spray painting, chronic rock attacks, verbal threats, indecent exposure, retribution and vicious rumors. Somebody even reportedly vomited on garments hanging out on a clothesline.

“We live in terror,” said Jim Hewitt, a 15-year park resident.

The siege at 76 Mobile Estates on North El Camino Real is among the worst ever seen by local police, the city attorney and the district attorney, who have tried without success to bring peace.

“It’s gotten so far out of hand, it’s absolutely unreal,” said Bob George a spokesman for the Oceanside Police Department. “It’s a regular Hatfield and McCoy-type situation out there.”

Police and prosecutors are trying to sort through 20 cases, mostly misdemeanors, to determine whether to press any charges and drag the unending dispute into court.

Bruce Silva, a veteran deputy district attorney who is evaluating the cases, said , “I personally have never seen anything that’s gotten so out of control.”

Longtime park residents say there have been problems for years, but, by most accounts, the latest chapter began about two years ago when Heidi Alexander, her little daughter and her mother, Grada Alexander, moved in.

Both residents and police say the main conflict is between the Alexanders and members of another family--Heath Sims, 18, who lives with his grandparents, Otis and Margaret Coleman.

As the fight between the two families has raged on, five or six other families in this modest, working class mobile home park of 80 families have become involved in the acrimony, whether they wanted to or not.

“I don’t even know who to believe, people in this park are so confused, we don’t even know,” said resident Anita Roberts.

As Heidi Alexander, a 30-year-old single parent, tells the story, the warfare began in May, 1990 when her daughter, then 4 years old, was molested. She accuses Sims and another male, but police say that, although an investigation was conducted, there were no arrests.

Alexander alleges Sims spray-painted her coach to “intimidate” the daughter out of telling Alexander she’d been molested. But, after the little girl told her mother, who then informed police, the vandalism “started big time.”

Alexander shows photos of her family’s coach-spray painted with pentagrams, squiggles, the outline of a person’s upper body, and an erect penis.

“They throw rocks almost every night,” said Alexander, adding, “Five windows have been broken, we’ve been painted three times, and rocks every night hitting the roof or the sides and denting our cars.”

Sims and the Colemans declined requests for interviews to tell their side, and attorney Steve Moore, who has represented Sims, said “there are still matters pending. She’s (Margaret Coleman) elected not to discuss it at this point.”

However, documents on file at Superior Court and Municipal Court in Vista help illustrate the morass of charges and countercharges that Alexander and Sims-Coleman have hurled against one another.

In a request for a restraining order, Alexander claimed that Sims had “exposed himself twice” to her and her family, and, on another occasion, “came after me with a baseball bat and threaten(ed) me.” A restraining order was granded.

But Sims and the Colemans also obtained a restraining order, and in documents filed with the court, they accuse Heidi Alexander of harassment and orchestrating rock-throwing against their home.

Sims alleged that “directly and indirectly through third parties, (Alexander) had rocks thrown at our coach three or four times a week through the entire month of August. In September of 1990, Heidi Alexander accused members of my family of being molesters.”

Another document written by Margaret Coleman alleged that “Heidi is spreading malicious lies about my family and myself. Heidi continues to molest my family at all hours day and night.”

Although both parties have restraining orders, it doesn’t seem to have done any good, as each side has accused the other of violating the orders. In one case in July, Alexander was charged with breaking the restraining order, but the charge was dismissed and she pleaded guilty to disturbing the peace, which is an infraction.

Alexander earlier this year accused Sims of indecent exposure, and the case went before a Municipal Court judge who found Sims not guilty.

On and on it’s gone, frustrating police.

Police Sgt. Doug Timbs said, “I’ve got a stack of crime reports. Just about everybody is a suspect or victims. We’ve got several neighbors who absolutely hate each other.”

Some residents say police have been summoned to the mobile home park on hundreds of occasions, and police spokesman George said, “some days we responded three, four times . . . . I can’t even surmise how many times we’ve gone out there.”

For authorities, the problem has been lack of conclusive evidence that would result in a sure arrest and conviction. Police say the incidents are typically one person’s word against another, and witnesses are afraid to come forward.

“Vandalism does exist,” said Timbs. “The question is, who’s doing what to whom?”

That’s not much satisfaction to residents who try to remain neutral but still live in fear and find themselves being dragged into the fray.

Valery Bonser, a dispatcher for the Oceanside Police Department, said she’s paid a price for supporting the neighboring Alexanders in the dispute.

“I found a Molotov cocktail bomb behind my house. I have a bullet hole in the side of my house. I’ve had firecrackers on my roof,” she said.

Down the block, Jim and Jeni Hewitt and their two young daughters are unhappily becoming entangled in the feud.

He said he walked to the Colemans’ house to check on the welfare of Otis Coleman because he heard there had been a family dispute. Hewitt found no problem, but when he left the Colemans, Sims allegedly “threatened to blow up my car, my Thunderbird.”

Things worsened, according to Hewitt, when police came to talk to one of his daughters after Sims allegedly reported the girl had pitched a rock at the Colemans’ place.

Now, the Hewitts are angry.

“We’re not really combatants yet, but we’re getting close,” he said, adding that he’s worried about the safety of his family. “My personal family life has been threatened.”

The rancor has continued so long that many observers don’t consider any of the major participants to be blameless.

Resident Roberts said, “I think they’re both wrong. I think they’re all doing something.”

Heidi Alexander denies all allegations against her, but concedes that her temper has occasionally gotten the better of her.

“The only thing I’ve ever been guilty of is when rocks were being thrown, I walked up to (the Colemans’) house and yelled at them. The only thing I’m guilty of is running my mouth. The only thing I’ve been into was disturbing the peace.”

Finally, the city attorney’s office has entered the fracas, asking the key parties to mediate their dispute. “The seemingly endless cycle of conflict has deeply troubled all involved parties as well as law enforcement personal,” said a letter from Deputy City Atty. Joe Stine.

But so far, there’s been no diplomatic breakthrough.

“These people won’t even sit in the same room with one another,” said prosecutor Silva.

The mobile home park’s new owner, Fritz Neumann, who took over in April, said he’s heard endless complaints and is trying to find a solution but has been stymied.

He said if sufficient evidence could be gathered, he would be willing to evict any offending parties. In the meantime, he said that two months ago he asked the city, which regulates the park under its rent control ordinance, to let him hire a 24-hour security service. He said he’s gotten no reply.

“I’m going to clean this place up, one way or the other,” Neumann vowed.