Residents Join Forces in Effort to Get Rid of Chronic Eyesore : Law: They all are filing small-claims suits to try to coerce a neighbor into moving. The woman’s lawyer calls the tactic mean-spirited.

For more than three years, Dave Flynn has glared with growing frustration at the unkempt house across the street from his Huntington Harbour home.

The city of Huntington Beach has filed criminal complaints against Flynn’s neighbor, Elena Zagustin, and in a lawsuit outlined a host of code violations at her home: rubbish and debris piled outside along with broken and discarded furniture, six-foot-tall weeds and numerous fire code violations inside.

In recent weeks, city officials and Zagustin’s attorney say the college professor has been cleaning up her property in accordance with a settlement last month.

But Flynn and other neighbors in this upscale beach community aren’t satisfied. They want Zagustin to move out.

After years of feuding, the neighbors have adopted tactics pioneered by a Bay Area group called Safe Streets Now! in a case that is being closely watched by others in Orange County who are locked in long-running neighborhood disputes.

Today, Flynn and 23 other Huntington Harbor residents--three of them lawyers--are taking Zagustin to small-claims court in Westminster. Each has filed a separate lawsuit seeking $5,000 in damages in hopes that a large judgment will send her packing.

“We don’t care about the money,” Flynn said. “We’re only using the money as a tool. We want her to sell the house.”

Zagustin’s attorney, Robert Whitaker, said she has been cooperating fully with the city to comply with the court settlement. He called the neighborhood’s small-claims action excessive and mean-spirited.

“The neighbors have a hyper-interest in the case,” Whitaker said. “I’ve been to her house many times. I can tell you now, it’s in absolutely fine condition. It’s not an eyesore. They just don’t think she fits in.”

Residents from Oakland to Long Beach have used the Safe Streets Now! technique in a last-ditch effort to force evictions of drug-selling tenants and put the squeeze on slumlords. Locally, the Huntington Harbor case is emerging as a key test of the tactic in Orange County against unsightly property.

City officials and residents elsewhere in the county are quick to proclaim neutrality in the Huntington Harbour dispute. It’s the approach that Flynn and his neighbors are taking, however, that fascinates them.

“The appeal of the Safe Streets Now! program is that residents can do some things that local or county government cannot do, and that is take property owners to small-claims court when everything else fails and operate without an attorney,” said Santa Ana Councilman Robert L. Richardson, an aide to Supervisor Roger R. Stanton.

“I think it’ll be a good tool for people to take things into their own hands in a safe fashion and to get some peace of mind.”

Richardson heard about the program and organized a training session with the program’s founder in January, in part for Midway City residents fed up with drug dealing on their street.

Santa Ana community activist Jim Walker also attended the same training session and has been working with Flynn and his neighbors to prepare their case.

“This would inoculate the county,” Walker said. “There’s so much powerlessness among people. If they only knew the power they had, they wouldn’t be so complacent or complicit in the crime that goes on around them. This is where people can see, hey, there is recourse.”

Safe Streets Now! was founded by Oakland resident Molly Wetzel in 1989 after she and her neighbors prevailed in a suit against a neighboring landlord. They complained that the landlord’s tenants had turned the property into a crack house, frequented by gang members and prostitutes who terrorized the neighborhood.

The goal is to force property owners to take action by suing them in small-claims court, where it is inexpensive to file a complaint and attorneys are not needed. Cases are heard within 30 days and individual judgments can reach $5,000. Several residents can file suits individually against one person, increasing the potential amount of judgments.

Key to the tactic’s success: Plaintiffs must show that the nuisance seriously affects their daily lives.

Since 1989, Wetzel has helped Bay Area residents pull in more than $760,000 in small-claims settlements from landlords in their neighborhoods. In Long Beach, neighborhood activist Betsy Bredau helped win residents more than $56,000 in judgments during the past year.

Bredau has become a fixture at community meetings throughout Southern California, training residents and officials on the use of small-claims actions. It was at one such meeting that she met Huntington Harbour resident Dave Flynn and agreed to help him launch his legal battle on otherwise placid Morse Circle.

“I think the program is really going to expand down there in the next year,” Bredau said. “There’s a feeling in Long Beach now that property owners are starting to understand what their responsibilities are. We really feel like up here we have some muscle in getting some of these wild properties under control.”

In some cases, Bredau said, just the threat of legal action prompted property owners to clean up or evict problem tenants.

Flynn and his neighbors say they are concerned that the condition of Zagustin’s home is hurting their property values, and a history of code violations at her home has them fearing for their safety.

“It’s absolutely driven us nuts,” said Ray Goulette, who has lived next-door to Zagustin since 1975. “We’re constantly in fear of a fire.”

Flynn said he and his neighbors have lost hope that any city action will permanently resolve their dispute.

“There is no place else to go,” Flynn said at a recent meeting held by neighbors to prepare for today’s court hearing.

Zagustin, a tenured engineering professor for 27 years who is on medical leave from Cal State Long Beach, has lived in her home for 25 years. Her attorney described her as “an independent, thinking person” who says her neighbors are trying to control the way she lives.

Whitaker said Zagustin has no intention of moving and has suggested that the neighbors can move if they’re so upset.

Zagustin did not return calls to her home last week.

Huntington Beach Deputy City Atty. Paul D’Alessandro said complaints about Zagustin’s property date back to the mid-1980s. The city has filed at least three criminal complaints against her, one of which resulted in a four-day jail sentence, D’Alessandro said.

More than a year ago, city officials opted for a different approach, and took Zagustin to civil court, seeking a permanent injunction that would force her to keep the house up to city codes.

The city and Zagustin reached a settlement last month after she took what D’Alessandro described as “major action” to clean up her property. D’Alessandro said her case has consumed more attorney hours than any other city code enforcement matter.

“I’d love to see the property owners prevail, because there is a problem,” said Margaret Riley, a senior code enforcement officer for the city of Huntington Beach.

Whether Flynn and his neighbors prevail in court today, others throughout the county say the Safe Streets Now! approach could provide greatly needed control to residents in troubled neighborhoods.

Norm Canchola, Santa Ana’s neighborhood improvement coordinator, said residents in several neighborhoods in the city are amassing the kind of information they need to take small-claims actions in an effort to clean up houses used by drug dealers.

But many people fear retaliation and find it difficult to rally the necessary neighborhood support, he said.

A victory for Flynn and his neighbors could unleash a flurry of new cases, said Santa Ana neighborhood activist Sandra Thrower.

“It’s just going to take one good case that everyone will look at and say, ‘Gosh, this really works,’ ” she said. “And maybe that will strengthen people emotionally so that they can get the courage to move forward.”