A real tension-getter: Some Granada Hills residents...

A real tension-getter: Some Granada Hills residents who escaped quake damage were shaken up several weeks later to find their houses suddenly plastered with red tags. They feared that the city had unaccountably declared their homes unsafe for occupancy. “UNSAFE” was, in fact, the only word visible from several feet away.

But a closer look revealed that the notices were merely ads by a company offering to perform quake repairs “in case” a resident’s house had been declared unsafe.

“From our point of view, they weren’t illegal but they were unethical, at the very least,” said Dave Keim of the city’s Department of Building and Safety. “They caused some confusion among homeowners but their purpose was to get attention, and they did.”

Keim’s office attempted unsuccessfully to reach the entrepreneur by telephone.

“A day or so after we phoned, his line was disconnected,” Keim said.

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A distress call from the Board of Supervisors?The county hasn’t gone belly up yet, no matter how bad the financial crisis is. Then again, the state flag was observed flying upside down at the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration building Thursday.

Honor thy psychologist!While “Honor Thy Father and Mother,” a movie about the Menendez case, was being shot in Pasadena, Jim Whalley photographed a dressing room door referring to Dr. L. Jerome Oziel, the brothers’ ex-psychologist.

“First he gets brutally examined by Leslie Abramson,” Whalley said. “Then those tapes of him singing the Elvis songs were played in court. And now his name is misspelled. . . .”

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Out, out, damned carpet!”Who cares about silly old spots,” writes Jim Thornton, who sent along the accompanying flyer, “when you can just remove the whole carpet!”

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There was only one judge for this performance: The tension was building in L.A. Superior Court as a defense witness offered what was supposed to be explosive “new evidence” in a Mafia kidnaping and robbery case. But the stirring in the courtroom late Wednesday afternoon had nothing to do with his testimony, which proved rather lame--and was dragging on.

Finally, Superior Court Judge Nancy Brown put to rest the fears of those in attendance. “I promise,” Brown said, “all of you will be able to get home in time to see Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding skate.”

The defendant’s attorney, Stanley Berg, said: “Your honor, I’m so tired of Tonya Harding.”

His objection was overruled.

miscelLAny:

After a litany of critical articles in national publications, L.A. finally found a friend despite its seemingly endless cycles of disasters. Spy magazine, in its February cover story, published a paean (“L.A. O.K.!”) to the City of Angels. A few weeks later, the magazine announced it had gone out of business. Just our luck.