High-Desert Homestand

After morning chores feeding the cows, chickens and goats, Lionel Cordova, the farmer’s son, plops down on the couch, picks up the remote and aims it at the TV.

Click. On it goes. And off goes Lionel into the world of channel surfing that most Americans take for granted.

But as Cordova jumps from a Spanish-language version of “The Jetsons” to an old war movie to CNN, the apparatus that make his TV viewing possible is anything but ordinary.

Outside, fastened to a 10-foot wooden tripod, a ceiling fan spins furiously, driven by the high-desert winds. The makeshift windmill sends current through an old car generator and into one of two large, six-volt batteries behind the house. The batteries, which also receive juice from a solar panel on the roof and an old lawn mower engine, send power through a converter into the TV.

The jerry-built electrical system is but one of the ways the Cordovas have adapted to the essentially worthless property they were duped into buying from convicted swindler Marshall Redman. Rather then flee this harsh land, they have imposed themselves on it, carving out a life over the last seven years.

Trouble is, the land isn’t theirs.

When Moses Cordova packed up his family of seven in 1992 and drove from Pomona to their new desert spread, they somehow wound up about a half-mile from where records indicate their property is located.

The Cordovas spent the first night on the ground under the stars, “like camping,” said Lionel, who was 17 at the time.

They have never left. Not when one of Redman’s representatives came back a couple of years later and told them they were on the wrong land. Not when a hunter’s errant bullet struck and injured one of the Cordova daughters. And not two years ago when the court-appointed receiver charged with cleaning up the mess Redman left behind told the Cordovas, once again, that they were on the wrong parcel.

“Eventually, they’re going to have to move,” said Richard Weissman, who runs the receivership. “We’ve offered to help, and that offer still stands.”

Roughly half the 40 families who bought land from Redman and decided to build on it are facing the same situation as the Cordovas, Weissman said.

For whatever reason--perhaps they were led to the wrong parcel by Redman, or perhaps they got disoriented and selected the wrong site themselves--they are on land that doesn’t belong to them and they are ignoring that fact, Weissman said.

Weissman took over the receivership in 1995 and has since been working to resolve the cases of about 1,500 people who bought property from Redman. So far, it appears that nearly 400 buyers have legal grounds for rescinding their purchase contracts and will be entitled to damages to come from Redman’s assets that are in the receivership. More than 100 others will qualify for some form of land exchange from within the pool of Redman properties. The remaining cases are under review.

The Cordova case is somewhat more complicated in that they are living on land belonging to a private owner who may be unaware of their presence.

Given the circumstances, Weissman said, he has nonetheless offered the Cordovas both the chance to rescind their contract and to engage in a land swap.

“But Mr. and Mrs. Cordova have done nothing to resolve this. Nothing,” Weissman said.

He made similar offers and received similar non-responses from 20 other families, he said.

“If they continue to act like ostriches and do not work with the receiver to resolve the problems, then the court will not be able to protect their claims to the land and they may lose it,” Weissman said. “It’s time for them to act.”

*

The Cordova ranch sits on what Moses Cordova says is 10 acres, surrounded by a chain-link fence the family raised a section at a time over several years. The nearest neighbor is about a mile away. One daughter, the only one still in school, rides the bus an hour each way to attend classes in Lancaster. The family has a cell phone for emergencies.

They live on the money Cordova’s wife and daughter-in-law earn as cooks for the county jail system and the few dollars Cordova and Lionel bring in from working odd jobs.

The family put $3,000 down on their property and made a few monthly payments before, like many Redman buyers, they stopped paying altogether. Their house, though neatly kept, is little more than a shanty made of scrap wood.

On a recent day, Moses appeared willfully oblivious to such legal technicalities as deeds and boundaries. He and his family have lived without the benefit of the public utilities that Redman promised would soon be coming.

Moses Cordova has forgotten about the promises. Indeed, he has almost forgotten about Redman. He just shrugs when asked about the house arrest that some have assailed as too lenient for the convicted con artist. At the moment, Moses is more concerned about doing the morning chores.

The Cordovas have cows, goats, pigs and chickens, whose eggs are used for the morning’s huevos rancheros. The livestock is well-fed, their pens clean. “We don’t eat them,” Moses said, “because we feel sorry for them.”

Despite the 27 mostly broken-down cars on their spread, the ranch is tidy and well-tended. The area around the house is landscaped with plants and trees that bear apples, oranges, peaches and cherries.

The family’s and the ranch’s lifeblood is a 1,000-gallon water tank on wheels.

About once a month, Moses pulls the tank behind his workhorse pickup truck to a nearby Los Angeles County well where he refills it. He pays about $120 a year for the right to do so.

Once the tank is back on the ranch, Moses’ ingenuity makes the best of it. The lack of running water is overcome by a shower designed to use gravity. A 50-gallon drum sits atop a wooden structure resembling an outhouse. Water is pumped from the tank into the drum. Yank on a chain inside the outhouse and a valve opens at the bottom of the drum--voila, a shower.

Examples of Cordova’s resourcefulness don’t end there. Nearby is a laundry room with a magnificent panoramic view of the desert. The washer and dryer are powered by an apparatus similar to the one that runs the TV.

In the animal pens, old bathtubs are used as troughs. Inside the house, the window of a camper shell is built into the roof--a rudimentary skylight that brightens the kitchen.

*

While Weissman is frustrated at Cordova’s lack of response to the ownership issue, he admits being impressed by his spirit.

“We have a definite cross-section of doers, survivors and non-achievers out there,” Weissman said. “Mr. Cordova is a doer--and that’s terrific.”

Regardless of what steps Cordova takes regarding his legal difficulties, life may be about to get tougher than it is already.

Later this year, Weissman said, the temporary water supplies made available to the Redman victims are scheduled to be cut off.

If that happens, life may become too hard, even for the Cordovas.