Santa Ana to Act Today in Tenant-Landlord Dispute : Council Could Declare Building a Nuisance

Ramona Gamez awoke last week to what sounded like a baby crying. Quickly getting out of her bed, she walked with a flashlight toward the crying, which was coming from the bathroom of her one-bedroom Santa Ana apartment.

When she turned her light toward the sound, two beady red eyes stared back at her. The sound was coming from a rat.

Rodents, roaches, leaking ceilings and rottening stairs are some of the problems the Gamez family and other tenants in a small Santa Ana apartment complex have faced in the four years they have withheld their rent from their landlord as part of a rent-strike movement in Orange County.

Nowhere Else to Go

Despite early hope that the apartments would be repaired and renovated by now, the conditions at 607 E. Washington Ave. in Santa Ana have worsened, tenants say, and they add that they have nowhere else to go.

The Santa Ana City Council is scheduled to vote today on whether to declare the building a public nuisance. Earlier this year, an attorney appointed by the city to help make that determination found the outside stairs and the balcony so rotten that he deemed the building dangerous.

If the council considers the building a nuisance, city officials will have two options: They can order the owners to repair the stairs and balcony by a certain date, or they can vacate tenants from the second floor until the building is repaired.

‘It’s Been Despicable’

Nick O’Malley, an attorney representing the building owners, said the owners intend to begin repairs as soon as they can get city permits.

“The owner intends to abate the nuisance and to cure it before the city does,” O’Malley said.

But the tenants are skeptical, their attorney said.

“It’s been despicable,” said Richard L. Spix, the attorney for the tenants. “I want the city to treat this problem much like it treats the weed problem. The city should get the building fixed and then charge the owner for the bill.”

The two-story building, which stands in front of the city water tower bearing the words All America City, is surrounded by a dusty lot that is used mostly for parking. Four apartments are boarded shut, and six families live in the remainder of the building.

Since 1984, the owners of the building, James B. Isbill and Bonnie P. Isbill, have wanted to demolish it and rebuild, O’Malley said. But in 1985, their tenants joined a rent strike with other low-income renters throughout Orange County. The tenants also filed a class-action suit against their various landlords demanding repairs.

The absence of any income from rents since that strike began has prevented the Isbills from either rebuilding on the site or repairing the existing building, their attorney said.

When Gamez, 63, moved to her apartment in 1983, she paid $500 rent. There was a gaping hole in the bathroom, the roof leaked, the windows were broken, the heater didn’t work and kitchen cabinets fell apart when the doors were opened, she said. And there were roaches and rats.

Gamez’s daughter, who had lived there previously, had warned her that the apartment was in bad shape. Gamez said the apartment manager told her that repairs would be made.

But the same problems still exist, except for the cabinets. Gamez had them replaced herself.

Margie Solorio, 36, also has lived in the complex for six years. She and her husband fix the roof when it leaks and paint the apartment when the old coat peels. And they are careful when they turn on the bathroom water because the water leaks downstairs and floods the apartment below.

Solorio also makes sure her youngest children do not use the outside stairs without her aid. She fears they will cut themselves on the splintered railing or fall down the wobbly stairs.

“We do all the repairs ourselves. It’s been that way since we moved in,” Solorio said.

Repairs have been made to the building’s foundation, however, with rent money the tenants place in a trust pending the outcome of their case, now set for trial early next year.

The building’s disrepair is not the owners’ fault, said Keith Monroe, the attorney who inspected the building for the city.

“What can a property owner do if their income is cut off?” he said.

But Spix maintains that the owners are obligated to fix the apartments.

“What if the owners decided to pay for all of the repairs instead of paying attorney fees in fighting the tenants?” Spix said. “I think the apartments would be substantially habitable. . . .”

In 1987, the owners sued their tenants for withholding rent. But last Tuesday, Orange County Municipal Judge Richard W. Stanford dismissed the complaint when Donna Frederiksen, trustee of the building, did not appear for what was supposed to be the first day of the trial. Neither she nor the owners could be reached for comment.

Gamez, a housemaid, said she cannot afford to move.

“I would just like to have everything fixed and have a reasonable rent,” she said. “Maybe even a little nice carpeting. It doesn’t have to be a lot of work.”