Yard Collects Heap of Stuff and Trouble : Canyon Country: Neighbors complain about what they consider an accumulation of junk outside couple’s home. And despite warnings from the city, the pile remains.

In Canyon Country, there is a place where you can regularly find bird cages, bicycles, table saws, tires, kitchen pipes, chandeliers, copying machines, stereo speakers, stoves, lawn chairs, hubcaps and plastic horses.

Unfortunately, that place is a yard in the middle of a middle-class, residential neighborhood.

Neighbors have complained repeatedly over the past year about what they consider a pile of junk at the home of Vicki Massi and Perry Baldwin on Drasin Drive. The city of Santa Clarita has cited Massi, who owns the residence, six times in the past nine months for dumping the stuff on the front lawn.

Massi doesn’t deny the charges.

“My boyfriend collects and sells things,” she said, matter-of-factly, standing outside the house. “He finds them in people’s trash. You wouldn’t believe what people throw away.”

Baldwin, a machinist, was reached at work but declined comment.

The neighbors complain that when the city confronts Massi and Baldwin, they simply lug their loot to the back yard where now stands a mountain of miscellany.

Then they start piling up the stuff in the front yard, again.

“It’s just a vicious cycle and a game they are playing,” said Catherine Pulsifer, a neighbor who has complained many times to the city on the problem. “And they play it very well.”

In addition to the aforementioned items, the yard, viewed from next door, now holds coolers, screens, metal sheets, hibachis, doors, motorcycle frames, lawn chairs, a bird bath and much more.

The next-door neighbor, Jim Day, doesn’t seem to mind, even though his back yard is neat and features a crystal-clear swimming pool.

“They’re real nice people, they just collect junk,” said Day, whose view of the stuff next door is obscured in part by a wall. “It used to be where it was just a small pile in the back, but they just kept bringing things in and bringing things in, and nothing leaves.”

The pragmatic Day said if the mound gets too high, he will build a taller wall.

Kyle Lancaster, Santa Clarita code enforcement officer, said Massi has not responded to the city’s most recent citation. Lancaster said he has requested a meeting with the district attorney’s office, the city and Massi “to let them know of the severity of the case at hand.”

If Massi, who has lived in the 30-year-old house for the last 14 years, conforms to the city code before the case receives a court hearing, it will be dropped.

The county health, fire, sheriff’s and animal control departments have all paid visits to Massi’s four-bedroom house, Lancaster said, in response to complaints of rats, late-night noise, potential fire hazards and concern over the condition of a Rottweiler dog. None of the visits have led to arrests or fines.

Massi, who said she doesn’t feel she has been singled out or treated unfairly by either the city or her neighbors, said the situation has blossomed into a feud between the neighbors and Baldwin.

“If they wouldn’t complain,” Massi said, “he wouldn’t do it.”