Fumigation Plan Has O.C. Seniors Fuming

With apologies to the late writer Paddy Chayevsky, Adelaide Capizzi and her friends are mad as hell and they’re not going to take it anymore.

Which means workers for the Fume Works pest-control company could be confronting more than a few unruly termites next month when they show up to fumigate part of the Huntington Landmark Adult Community.

Capizzi--whose son is Orange County Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi--and other residents say they plan to stage a sit-in in their own homes rather than accede to the fumigation plans by their own community association.

“We’re paying to be poisoned,” said Harriet Ervin, Capizzi’s neighbor and co-chair of Seniors Against Fumigant Endangerment, which they describe as a grass-roots coalition to ban forced fumigation.

At issue is a decision by Huntington Landmark managers to tent and fumigate about 25 buildings, each containing five privately owned units, using toxic Vikane [sulfuryl fluoride] gas.

Protesters blame that compound for the illness of a neighbor two years ago.

Audrey Wendt reentered her home in early August 1995 after fumigation tents were removed, Capizzi said. The next day Wendt complained of a scratchy throat and watery eyes, was eventually hospitalized with cardiovascular problems and now lives in a nursing home, a chain of events Capizzi and other neighbors believe began with the fumigation.

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Wendt sued Fume Works and Huntington Landmark, among others, arguing that the fumigation residue left her ill. The case was settled out of court last December, said attorney Richard Farnell, whose law firm represented Wendt.

“Her doctor told her he thought it was a result of the fumigation, and that the chemicals were hazardous to her,” Farnell said. “She had very significant, severe ramifications from that.”

Farnell declined to discuss specifics of the case because, he said, he was uncertain how much he could say under terms of the settlement.

Telephone messages seeking comment from Fume Works officials went unanswered. An attorney who represented the company in the Wendt case declined to answer questions. A receptionist at the Huntington Landmark office said officials there would have no comment.

But Huntington Landmark residents interpret the out-of-court agreement as evidence that fumigation can affect more than termites.

“The people here are all upset and nervous and frightened,” Capizzi said.

Scared, yes. Cowed, no.

Not only is Capizzi’s son district attorney, her late husband--also a lawyer--was general counsel for Ford Motor Co. Capizzi describes herself as “a great researcher and a big letter writer” and not someone easily pushed around.

Ervin, who is equally forceful, has a daughter who runs her own public relations agency, which accounts for the press release and media information packet the seniors have been handing out.

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The two women say they aren’t just staving off housing managers on a bug-killing juggernaut. Rather, they are fighting for broader respect for senior citizens, whom they say routinely are badgered and frightened into actions--including acquiescing to unnecessary fumigation--simply because they’re too old to fight back.

“They tell us that if you don’t have [the fumigation] done, the building will fall down on your head and you’ll lose your investment,” said Capizzi, who supports such alternative pest-control measures as microwaving, freezing and laying out borax. “They treat everyone like they are feudal lords and we’re their subjects. . . . They have such control over these poor, helpless seniors. They frighten them, and they back down.”

The two women said they hope to embolden seniors elsewhere to defend their interests by pooling energies and their vast experiences.

“They have nobody to stand up for them,” Capizzi said.

In an ironic twist for the mother of a conservative prosecutor and wife of a corporate lawyer, Capizzi turned to collective action by persuading 40 of her neighbors to vow to refuse fumigation of their homes.

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The residents have been told by Landmark officials to meet Tuesday morning in front of Capizzi’s home to hear a Fume Works representative explain fumigation and outline the homeowners’ responsibilities.

Fume Works officials are to gather copies of house keys as well, which Capizzi dismissed as unnecessary and a potential security problem in the gated complex.

Then it will be showdown time, Ervin said.

“We hope by that time they’ll back down,” Ervin said, her words conciliatory but the smile on her face anything but.

“This is delicious,” she admitted. “If they don’t back down, I’ll hole up in here [with Capizzi] and they’ll get an injunction and go get the marshals and if she pokes her nose out the door they’ll haul her off to jail.

“I don’t think it will come to that but it will be nice if it did,” she continued as Capizzi looked on with a smile of anticipation on her face. “We’d like to get this all across the country.”

Beneath the smiles, though, roils some serious anger.

“When you’re an older citizen, they brush you off,” Capizzi said, sitting in her living room among pictures of her son posing with presidents Reagan and Bush. “They think you’re not going to remember anyway. It’s an insult to your dignity and to your intelligence.

“You’re bound to get angry when something like this happens. It’s unconscionable that they can come in here and do whatever they want with our buildings.”