House in Blight Case Sold at Court Auction

Randy Durham figured he got a good bargain Wednesday when he agreed to pay $301,500 for a house in an upscale neighborhood of this seaside city.

But the house he bought at a court-ordered auction is the notoriously blighted Huntington Harbour home of Cal State Long Beach professor Elena Zagustin, who still lives there and has vowed to continue fighting for her property.

The once rubbish-filled house with a hole in the roof had, at one point, violated 69 building and safety laws. The sale was aimed at satisfying nearly $300,000 in judgments that neighbors obtained against Zagustin.

Durham and his investment partners outbid three others at the brief auction, held at the Orange County Superior Court building in Westminster.

Zagustin, 62, who neighbors said still lives in the house, made repeated trips to the courthouse Wednesday morning to try to postpone the auction. Toting a plastic bag filled with legal documents, she said she plans to continue pressing the matter. She took pictures of the auction crowd of about 50, mostly members of the media.

“They’re doing fraudulent sales,” she said after the auction. “I’m not giving up on what I’m doing.”

The single-story stucco house looked suitable from the outside Wednesday, the only blight appearing to be weeds growing out of cracks in the driveway and sidewalk.

Durham, meantime, is learning what he is getting into.

“This has turned out to be a little more than the adventure we’d anticipated,” he said.

“I’m going to talk to her and see if she’ll go quietly,” he said.