Neighbors Take Feuding to Court : Dispute: Judge hears four hours of testimony about trash, noise and odor at Huntington Harbour home. Owner calls lawsuits ‘malicious,’ says she has cleaned up.

A steady stream of Huntington Harbour residents told horror stories in small-claims court Monday about hoarded rubbish, vermin, loud noises and unbearable stenches at the home of their neighbor, nuisances that they say have plagued them for two decades.

“I’ve had recurring nightmares because of the fire hazard. I’ve spent countless sleepless nights listening to her bang around in her trash cans,” Raymond Goulette told Judge Corey S. Cramin, his voice cracking as he talked about his neighbor of 19 years, Elena Zagustin, a civil engineering professor.

Two dozen Huntington Harbour residents each are seeking a $5,000 judgment against Zagustin, the maximum obtainable in small-claims court, in the hopes the combined sum will either force her to clean up or move out.

After listening to four hours of testimony from neighbors who sued Zagustin in small-claims court Monday, Cramin took a tour of the neighborhood, peeking over a fence into Zagustin’s yard, surrounded by immaculately landscaped, $400,000 houses.

The judge’s ruling will be announced today, his clerk said. He ruled in favor of some plaintiffs but not all, she said.

Neighbors Philip and Kathryn Arnold told Cramin that their dog has chronic parasites and that they can’t allow their 9-month-old baby to crawl around in their back yard. Vermin that they contend came from Zagustin’s property have crawled through their doggy door, they said.

“We moved into this home because we thought it was a nice, quiet neighborhood where we could raise children. This has not turned out to be the case,” Kathryn Arnold said. “We feel like we are prisoners in our own home.”

The case has become a key test in Orange County of a tactic called Safe Streets Now! pioneered by Bay Area residents to force evictions of drug-selling tenants by winning large judgments against the landlords in court.

The residents told Cramin on Monday that Zagustin has caused them emotional distress by keeping piles of rubbish in and around her house, abusing her cats and contributing to unbearable stenches and rat and opossum infestations in the neighborhood.

They presented a 380-page file subpoenaed from the Huntington Beach code-enforcement office, outlining actions the city has taken against Zagustin over the years, including 21 inspections of her property, four criminal complaints and a Superior Court civil lawsuit by the city that was settled last month.

Zagustin sought unsuccessfully to have the cases dismissed Monday, saying she had not been served with court papers. She then sought to have the case transferred to Superior Court, where she could be represented by an attorney, because the total claims amount to $120,000. The judge denied both requests.

Zagustin denied many of their allegations, pointing out that the statute of limitations on emotional distress claims is one year.

“This is some kind of malicious prosecution, because a lot of the things they are saying are absolutely untrue,” she told Cramin.

She also said she had cleaned her house in accordance with last month’s court settlement, and that she has addressed many of the neighbors’ complaints about piles of concrete and rubbish at her property.

“I’m not bothering anybody. All I do is work and come home,” Zagustin said outside court. “My house is cleaned up.”

Zagustin, 57, a tenured engineering professor for 27 years, is on medical leave from Cal State Long Beach.

Safe Streets Now! founder Molly Wetzel has helped Bay Area residents pull in more than $760,000 in judgments since 1989, and Long Beach activist Betsy Bredau has helped residents win more than $56,000 over the past year.

Bredau, who is helping Huntington Harbour residents with their case and came to court Monday, said the situation on upscale Morse Circle is clearly different from one in drug-plagued neighborhoods. But the residents’ frustration is similar.

“The testimony was identical to people living next-door to a drug house in the frustration, the despair, the distress and the feeling that somebody’s going to do something illegal soon to get it stopped,” Bredau said after the hearing. “I was amazed by the depth of despair.”

Officials and frustrated residents in Orange County cities plagued by drug dealing are currently researching use of the method and say a success for Huntington Harbour residents would be inspirational.

“If this is successful, then it clearly shows that citizens can take the law into their own hands and win. This is America. This is wonderful!” said Santa Ana neighborhood activist Jim Walker, who attended a Safe Streets Now! training session in January and has been supporting the Huntington Harbour efforts.

“It shows how due process can work for the people, not against them. We have to reassure people that the system works.”

David Flynn, the Huntington Harbour resident who spearheaded the small-claims action, said he and his neighbors will continue to refile claims against Zagustin until her home is maintained to their satisfaction or they force her out.

Although Flynn and the others concede that Zagustin has cleaned up since the city took her to civil court, they say they have seen her fix up her property before, only to see it return to its former condition.