Close Quarters Magnify Crime, Nuisances

Condominium owner Gina Lane says she has found little joy in owning her $100,000 condominium on Avenida del Platino in Thousand Oaks.

Despite the nicely landscaped exterior and amenities such as a pool and a park, she thinks the Las Casitas condominium complex has too many people living in its 540 units.

Some condos are jammed with new faces that change weekly, Lane said. There are days when strangers have beer parties on Lane’s lawn. Men she has never seen before make catcalls from across the street.

“My kids can’t play outside without me worrying they may get hurt,” Lane said, cradling her 2-year-old daughter.

The 1990 U.S. Census confirms what many Las Casitas residents already suspect--that the complex has the most overcrowded dwellings in Thousand Oaks.

Las Casitas residents, both homeowners and renters, complain that crowding causes problems with parking, noise and crime.

Last year, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department responded to 556 disturbances in Lane’s neighborhood, mostly complaints about fighting, public drunkenness and loud parties, Sgt. Bruce Hansen said. More serious crimes also occur. Also last year, there was a rape, a robbery and 20 aggravated assaults, he said.

“Those statistics are inordinately high,” Hansen said. “In my judgment, it’s contributed to by overcrowding.”

Tenants like Jesus Martinez, 29, say they have no choice but to live in crowded conditions that his neighbors deplore.

Martinez has lived at Las Casitas with his wife and four children for two years. But ever since the economy soured, work has been difficult to find.

So Martinez allowed his brother and his cousin to move in so they could split the monthly $735 rent. Martinez and his wife sleep with their two girls and a newborn baby in one room. His 10-year-old son sleeps with the two men in the other. They live in a condo built for four people.

It is not an ideal situation for Martinez, but he considers himself lucky to have a home.

Ever since his hours were cut, it has been more difficult to make ends meet with his $4.75-an-hour job as a waiter at a hotel restaurant.

“I’ve looked at other places but they want a lot of rent,” he said. “If I pay for the rent, food, milk, diapers, what’s left? It’s hard.”

Nearly three-fourths of the 540 units at Las Casitas, located only a few blocks east of Thousand Oaks City Hall, are owned by landlords who rent out their homes.

Twenty-one years ago, Las Casitas was built as one of the city’s first affordable housing tracts and each condo sold for $17,000, homeowner Lucile Shiffer said.

Shiffer complained that overcrowding has caused some deterioration in the neighboring units. Several years ago, when prices were high, the units sold for up to $120,000. Now they are barely selling for $100,000.

Ken De Vries, president of the Las Casitas Homeowners Assn., agreed that the effects of overcrowding have led to a drop in property values of about $20,000 per condominium.

Overcrowding has also driven up homeowners’ bills for commonly shared services such as water, garbage and maintenance. Last year, the association was warned by its water supplier to cut back or face fines on its next bill, De Vries said.

De Vries blamed some of the complex’s problems on landlords who bought their homes as investments and are not careful about screening tenants.

“There’s a good percentage that are responsible,” he said. “And there’s a percentage of landlords that say, ‘They pay their rent on time,’ and they’re the ones who are causing the problems.”

In response to the problems, the association last week began to crack down on renters, adopting fines for activities that bother residents the most, such as drinking in public and fixing autos in garages.

But the association has been unable to force landlords to evict troublesome tenants, De Vries said. He hopes the city will adopt an ordinance that would force landlords to seek a city permit if they rent to four or more adults.

Homeowner Lori Rai found out how bad the crowding was when she served on the homeowners association board several years ago.

“We’d get into the units and there were people living in the attics. They had moved couches up there, they had moved TVs up there,” said Rai, a nine-year resident of Las Casitas.

Rai acknowledges that her complex bears little resemblance to dilapidated tenement houses common to inner cities.

“But that’s not the issue. The issue is how we rank in comparison to our area,” she said. “And we’re the slum of Thousand Oaks.”