Absentee Landlord

It is an urban eyesore, a magnet for crack smokers, a place where transients often settle for the night.

The abandoned house in Watts, with a yard full of trash and windows covered with plywood, was declared a public nuisance by the city of Los Angeles nearly four months ago, but it remains filthy and unfenced, its garage and yard open to all passersby.

Who owns this neighborhood nightmare? Why, the city of Los Angeles.

“It’s a problem that’s out of control. Here we are the owners and we’re not cooperating with ourselves,” said an exasperated Councilwoman Laura Chick, whose Public Safety Committee has been struggling to cope with abandoned houses throughout the city. “I can’t think of a better symbol to hold up to say that our system of dealing with problem properties in Los Angeles isn’t working and is broken.”

The epidemic of vacant houses--officials estimate there are at least 2,000 citywide--has reemerged as a priority in City Hall after a different one, also in Watts, was used last month in the alleged gang rape of a 13-year-old girl that led to the fatal shooting of 82-year-old Viola McClain. Homeowner groups have long complained about abandoned buildings dragging down property values, and criminologists believe that when left unabated, a graffiti-scarred home with broken or boarded windows signals a site hospitable to crime.

The embarrassment factor for the city is compounded because one of the most difficult steps in nuisance abatement is finding owners who let their property deteriorate and forcing them to clean it up.

“No excuses, just the plain facts: What we have to do is correct the problem and correct it immediately,” Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas said when told of the situation. “No community should be subjected to landlords who don’t properly care for their property--particularly if it’s the city, particularly if it’s government.”

Officials say the white stucco house at 1840 E. 115th St. is probably not the only nuisance building the city owns--but there is no comprehensive list available to find out the exact number.

Intending to expand a nearby roadway, the city purchased the house that is now a nuisance for $125,000 in January 1995--when, city officials and neighbors agree, it was in good condition. (The city is buying five houses on the block. At least two others are currently vacant: No. 1818 was recently broken into, according to city records, and No. 1830’s windows were boarded Wednesday). The pending construction project--which would create a cloverleaf onramp to provide access to an elevated Imperial Highway, the Century Freeway and Metro Rail--has been delayed and is scheduled to begin in March.

Which has left 1840 E. 115th St. standing empty, a victim of bureaucratic oversight and lack of communication.

“They own it, but they ain’t doing nothing about it. It’s pretty annoying,” said Eddie Christopher, a 47-year resident of a home across the street, whose own lawn is green and well-groomed. “It makes mine look bad.”

Though in recent months police have visited the site frequently, residents said that doesn’t help.

Transients “go in there to smoke the dope,” said Billy Carrera, who lives down the block. “Police come, they tell them to go. When police leave, they come back. You get used to it already.”

After receiving complaints from neighbors, city building inspectors posted an “abate order” on the graffiti-scarred house April 16--not realizing it belonged, essentially, to their bosses.

The building was open to unauthorized entry, with broken windows and missing doors, according to inspector John Sciberras’ records. The floors sagged, cabinets were gone, and the place was “littered with combustible debris.” Not to mention electrical, plumbing and heating deficiencies. Sciberras estimated that it would cost $14,000 to get it cleaned and fenced; back at the office, he ran a title search to find the absentee landlord.

Even when he saw who the owner was, Sciberras did not deviate from the normal procedure: He sent the abatement notice to the city, at the house’s address, via certified mail.

“We saw it, we posted it,” Sciberras said. “It doesn’t matter that the city owns it--we treat it like any other property.” The envelope addressed to “LA CITY” at 1840 E. 115th St. came back marked “Return to Sender.” Eventually, the city sent another notice to itself--this time to the correct address in City Hall South--and by July 19, city records show, the house was boarded and secure. Officials say it is scheduled to be demolished in a matter of weeks.

But with a garage still open to trespassers--someone has made a makeshift home inside, a dog is usually tied to the nearby fence, and police as recently as Monday found vagrants in the back--the place remains a scar on the block, residents and police say, wreaking havoc on a neighborhood already rife with problems.

“It’s frustrating. I’m sure there are more,” said senior building inspector Mark Morrow. “It’s demeaning. We’re city employees, and here’s what we see.”

What one sees at 1840 E. 115th St. is a real estate agent’s version of hell.

Four posts of what once was a white picket fence sit in front of a yard that resembles a trash bin: here an old tire, there a bent bicycle wheel, everywhere empty cartons of Olde English 800, Corona Extra and Kings menthol cigarettes. A pink rose bush in one corner and an old fig tree in the back are the only signs of former owner Gussie Spiller, who built the house in 1947 and lived there almost a half century; the rest is overgrown with weeds.

In back of the house, the stench is overwhelming: Dirty clothes and scrap wood mix with excrement of birds, dogs and human beings.

Inside the garage is, perhaps, the saddest part of the scene: Someone has sandwiched an Oriental rug and soiled mattress between two trash heaps and placed personal items lovingly on wood plank shelves. There is an Ebony magazine from April 1979, a hanger with a dirty shirt and vest, a tattered paperback of “Pink Topaz” by Jennifer Greene and a greeting card that says “Congratulations.” On one wall hangs a piece of cardboard with a pencil sketch and the message “I’ll be glad when I’m off drugs. . . . Me, and everyone.”

City officials say 1840 E. 115th St. just fell through the cracks, a victim of the vast bureaucracy.

The Department of Public Works’ Bureau of Engineering bought the house, but its real estate division says the Department of General Services is responsible for maintaining it. The house was barricaded soon after the initial purchase, but when the boards were torn off, months passed before the problem landed in the lap of the Department of Building and Safety.

“This is their property,” said Dan Rosenfeld, assistant general manager of General Services’ asset management division. “Obviously, as sister agencies in the city, we need to cooperate to give service to the public, [but] whatever service we [General Services] provide needs to be ordered.”

Mark Chmielowiec of the Bureau of Engineering, who is working on the road-expansion project, said he would have made sure the house was cleaned and fenced--had he only known there was a problem.

“I had no idea that it was declared a public nuisance,” he said. “I wish that somebody would have spoken up sooner.”

Reggie Jones-Sawyer, a deputy to Mayor Richard Riordan who has been working on the problem of vacant houses, said the situation highlights the need for a nuisance abatement director to coordinate activities among city departments. That position will probably be created by the fall, though policymakers disagree about whether to hire additional staff to help with nuisance abatement or instead spend money demolishing vacant houses.

The office of Councilman Rudy Svorinich, who represents Watts, was neither surprised nor upset to discover that the city was responsible for a nuisance house generating complaints in the district.

“Bureaucracy is hell, what can I tell you,” said Svorinich’s chief of staff, Barry Glickman. “There’s a lot of abandoned buildings--why just pick on the city?”