COVER STORY : They’re Cleaning Up in Court : Neighbors Sue Landlords to Get Rid of Drug Dealers and Troublemakers

She is an unlikely savior, an unemployed accountant leading a grass-roots crusade against drug dealers and their hangouts.

Instead of crunching numbers, Betsy Bredau spends her days teaching frightened residents how to reclaim their streets. Neighborhood block captains revere her. Long Beach politicians refer constituents to her. Police chiefs in other cities want to pick her brain.

Her message is simple: It’s up to property owners to get rid of drug dealers and other troublemakers. If they don’t, neighbors will take those owners to court and probably win thousands of dollars in damages.

What began as Bredau’s fight to clean up a drug-infested duplex on her street has ballooned neighborhood-by-neighborhood into a new war on drugs in Long Beach. In eight months, she has helped residents win more than $53,000 in judgments.

In some instances, just the threat of a lawsuit has prompted owners to act, neighborhood leaders say. At least 13 landlords have voluntarily fixed up their buildings or evicted problem tenants after Bredau contacted them.

Some landlords complain they are being punished for a problem that is beyond their control. But police say Bredau has found an effective way to clean up trouble in neighborhoods. Community groups that have worked with her say they see results in weeks, a fraction of the time it can take the city to clean up buildings with suspected drug activity.

“She’s made certain blocks in the city safer,” said Lt. Don First, who is in charge of community policing for the Long Beach Police Department’s south division. “To my way of thinking, she has accomplished a great deal.”

Bredau gets landlords’ attention by hitting them where they are most vulnerable--in the pocketbook.

Residents in a neighborhood near Bixby Park recently won $25,000 after a judge concluded that the owner of a building at 465 Almond Ave. had ignored complaints about frequent gunfire and people openly drinking and smoking marijuana, among other things.

Karen DeYoung, who lives next door to the two-story apartment building with wrought-iron bars over the windows, said she frequently cleared hypodermic needles and used condoms from her driveway.

Residents said the landlord, Bunrith Lor, ignored their complaints. Frequent visits by police also failed to deter the criminal activity, they said.

They sought help from City Councilman Alan S. Lowenthal, who referred them to Bredau. She told the group to keep detailed logs of incidents at the building for at least a week. The residents documented several incidents, including shots fired and suspected gang members loitering in front of the building.

Bredau sent Lor a stern letter asking that he hire a security guard and get rid of problem tenants, even if it meant paying them to leave. When Lor did not respond, the residents took him to Small Claims Court, alleging that the incidents had created a public nuisance.

“Our situation was so dangerous that we knew we were heading for a (deadly) shooting,” said DeYoung, 41, who sent her 17-year-old son to live with relatives in Arizona for two months last summer. “It was either get help or go to one of our own funerals.”

Lor, who lives in Cypress, said he could not afford to meet the group’s demands, but that he has been evicting problem tenants since he took over the building last May. He also said he cannot afford to pay the judgment, and has appealed. Nevertheless, Lor and the community agree that much of the trouble has been eliminated.

Bredau’s approach is patterned after a program developed five years ago by an Oakland resident.

The idea was to take property owners to Small Claims Court, where it costs just $15 to file suit, cases are heard within 30 days and individual judgments can reach $5,000. Several residents could file suit, increasing the potential amount of awards. Litigants may not be represented by an attorney unless the case is appealed to Superior Court.

In Oakland and other cities in the San Francisco Bay Area, resident groups have won more than $760,000 in judgments since 1989, said Molly Wetzel, founder of Safe Streets Now!, the organization that pioneered the strategy.

Bredau read about Wetzel’s group in a newspaper article while experiencing problems in her neighborhood near Bixby Park about two years ago. Cars cruised the street at all hours, stopping at a run-down duplex across from Bredau’s Rose Avenue house. Strangers milled around--drinking, fighting, yelling at neighbors.

For months, Bredau, who lives with six cats and two dogs, had complained to the property owner, but he ignored her pleas, she said.

She frequently called police, who made two drug-related arrests. She even confronted the strangers, who threatened her and heaved bricks through her windows in the middle of the night, she said. She keeps photos of the damage.

Bredau, 41, said she refused to move from her three-bedroom house because she liked the neighborhood of single-family homes, just four blocks from the ocean. So she and two neighbors decided to sue the owner, alleging that conditions at the property created a public nuisance. Bredau had no legal experience and did not consult a lawyer. She prepared by following a summary of a case Wetzel had filed against an Oakland property owner.

Bredau and the neighbors were each awarded $1,000. And about two months after the court hearing, the problem tenants were evicted, Bredau said. Soon, children began to ride their bikes down the alley where cars once cruised at night.

“It was a wonderful sense that we had new power,” recalled Bredau, who said there have been no more problems. “We finally had a forum for complaints.”

The property owner, Galileo E. Dacer, declined comment.

News of Bredau’s success has spread through the Southeast area. She said she receives about five inquiries a day. Compton Police Chief Hourie Taylor invited Bredau to speak at a recent meeting of area law enforcement officials from his department, Montebello, South Gate, Bell Gardens and Lynwood. Taylor said he plans to try the strategy in Compton neighborhoods where drug activity has taken root.

“It appears very expeditious,” Taylor said of the approach. “Not only (will) the police get involved (by training residents), but it requires the involvement of the community.”

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Bredau, who was laid off in August from her accounting job at Lockheed, now works full time helping others reclaim their neighborhoods. She pays her bills with severance money and loans from relatives. She also is seeking a $20,000 grant from the city Community Development Department to continue the work.

“It seems like every other block has one of these pent-up problems,” she said. Long Beach authorities and city officials see the approach as a new community policing tool in neighborhoods where police raids and other measures have failed to put an end to illegal activity.

Authorities say it can take months, if not years, to force property owners to deal with problem tenants. Under state law, landlords who don’t rid their buildings of drug problems can be barred from renting for up to a year. But police must document drug-related activity at a property. The process is often prolonged because residents are reluctant to contact police for fear of retaliation.

By contrast, residents who use Bredau’s approach do not have to cite specific drug-related activity. They simply document “nuisance activities” such as loud parties, public drinking or loitering.

“Ninety-five times out of 100 it is drug-related,” Bredau said. “The constant traffic in and out of the property and frequent loud arguments are the dead giveaways that they are selling drugs there.”

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Officials say Bredau’s approach also has triggered more sweeping neighborhood cleanup efforts.

In the area around George Washington Middle School, northwest of downtown, apartment building owners, managers and tenants have gotten more involved since Bredau helped them clean up a notorious complex that had 26 drug arrests over three years.

One manager has installed caged lights at the back of a building to illuminate the alley. Others have painted addresses on building facades to help police respond to calls. One tenant painted the address of her building in 5-foot-long white numbers on the roof so police helicopters can see it.

“There is a changed attitude,” said resident Faith Palermo. “It shamed us that we had drug-dealing families right across from the school.”

Many landlords say they recognize their responsibility to maintain rental properties, but contend they should not be required to take on the role of the police.

They also complain that they sometimes are unfairly blamed for problems that have several sources. In a recent Long Beach case, a Municipal Court commissioner declined to penalize a landlord accused of ignoring drug dealing and other incidents at his central-area apartment building. After touring the neighborhood, Commissioner Jeffery P. Castner concluded that patrons at a corner bar also could have been contributing to the problems. Neighbors said the owner and employees of the bar have begun attending Neighborhood Watch meetings.

Some landlords have complained that Bredau’s approach is too confrontational and that their efforts to clear up a problem are overlooked by residents.

“I felt I was being mistreated,” said Rick Hamblin, a North Long Beach property owner who was threatened with a lawsuit. Neighbors said gang members were visiting property Hamblin owns on East 68th Street and threatening residents.

Hamblin denies that the visitors were gang members. He said neighbors were overreacting to a parking problem in the alley behind his property. He said friends and relatives of a disabled couple double-parked in the alley during visits.

“My side wasn’t even taken into consideration,” he said. “The first thing (they) said was, ‘We’re gonna sue you.’ ”

Hamblin said he eventually asked the tenants to leave after they did not pay the rent on time.

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Landlord representatives question the motives of some residents who decide to sue. “Is the point to reclaim our neighborhoods, or is the point to put some freebie money out there to a bunch of disgruntled tenants?” asked Nancy Ahlswede, executive vice president of the Apartment Assn., California Southern Cities.

Ahlswede said residents aren’t aware of the pressures on owners, who are often denied loans to improve buildings in crime-ridden areas and fear retaliation if they try to evict problem tenants. Most landlords will work with resident associations if approached in a non-threatening way, she said.

But some apartment building owners endorse Bredau’s strategy. Tony Vigil, for example, said that as a result of Bredau’s efforts, the neighborhood around Washington Middle School will be safer for his tenants, ultimately increasing property values.

“This is the greatest thing that’s come here in years,” said Vigil, 37. “They’re putting pressure on other owners to shape up or ship out.”

Reclaiming Neighborhoods

Court judgements against owners of troublesome Long Beach residences:

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Address: 419 Rose Ave.

Award: $3,000

Date: July 21, 1992

Activities: Constant foot and vehicle traffic at duplex. Suspected drug activity. Drug dealing. Threats to neighbors.

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Address: 465 Almond Ave.*

Award: $25,000

Date: Nov. 3, 1993

Activities: Loitering at building. Gunfire. drinking in public. Noise.

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Address: 625 Orizaba Ave.

Award: $3,250

Date: Jan. 26, 1994

Activities: Gunfire outside building. Disorderly conduct. Noise from car stereos.

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Address: 791 Dawson Ave.

Award: $25,000

Date: Feb. 7, 1994

Activities: Constant foot traffic in and out of building. Noise.

* Owner appealed judgement

Sources: Court documents, Betsy Bredau, neighborhood residents.

On the Cover

Long Beach activist Betsy Bredau shows some of the materials she uses in teaching neighborhood associations how to sue landlords in Small Claims Court to get them to clean up drug-plagued properties--a tactic she has used successfully to improve conditions in her own neighborhood.