Reader Rave: “Good Neighbors in OB Act in the Face of a Bad Purpose”

A Conclusion to “Good Neighborhood/Bad Neighbors”

Editor: In March we published a Reader Rant entitled “What to Do With Bad Neighbors in a Good Neighborhood?” by an anonymous local resident. Many of our readers responded to his complaint and plight – there were an unusual number of comments – 61 to be exact. That resident  – Daniel Bille – has since made himself known publicly and attended an OB Town Council meeting to further his case.  Now, the problems with his problem neighbors are over – and here is his story.

By Daniel Bille / Special to the OB Rag

It was the first Thursday night in May and our lives returned to normal. For months, we had grown a sense of foreboding and dread every night when the sun went down but especially when Thursdays arrived. For reasons we can only guess, Thursday was the night the renters next door preferred to get drunk early and fight each other or, worse, keep us awake all night with their noise. Always on Thursday. I grew to fear Thursday coming over the past year.

For months we did our best to insulate ourselves from the noise, windows closed, and curtains drawn, white noise machine in the baby’s room.

First, asking them politely to keep the party/quarreling noise down at night. Later, when asking failed, we call for police involvement.

The noise increased. The hostility did too. My daughter could not play in back yard alone without the renter/neighbors dogs charging the fence at her with the renter’s looking on impassive.

I stopped working in the yard without someone with me as a deterrent against threats; my wife stopped doing laundry at night. We would invite friends over for dinner on Thursdays not just for the pleasure of their company, but for the protection of safety in numbers. Such is the nightmare we found ourselves in since I woke from sleep to find the renters next door scaling the fence outside my 20 month old daughter’s bedroom window.

The first Thursday night in May was different. In place of the steady stream of empty alcohol containers leaving the house, there were boxes, the curtains had been removed from all of the windows. All of the renters cars started and pulled away after a slow drive by the front of our house.

That was all. Quiet. Just quiet. I opened my daughter’s bedroom window for the first time since Christmas and heard just the normal night noises of life in the city. Almost one year to the day since they moved in the renters next door were forcefully evicted for threatening and harassing my family.

Just how was this miracle even accomplished?

Thanks to the help of many people in the Ocean Beach community. Attending a meeting of the Ocean Beach Town Council was the best decision we ever made. The support of leaders in the community, neighbors, mothers, fathers, police, and city council members. Special thanks to Frank and the O.B. Rag for being a pulpit for the community on which I could broadcast my distress in a March article.

I was able to work with representatives of the SDPD, DA’s office, and City enforcement branches.

Most importantly, I was able to network with other good neighbors in the community that had encountered and overcome similar problems who shared their experiences and knowledge with me. Mostly, my wife and I found that we were not alone in our struggle to ‘do the right thing’ and Ocean Beach is not just a collection of beach rentals and college party goers.

Readers should know that the resolution was not quick, nor was it easy.

We faced a situation so dire and out of control that, in the words of my father, “either they move, or you do”. I won’t lie, we seriously considered moving.

The path we took to the successful eviction of the renters was not violent or forceful, but methodical and persistent. We steadily documented day by day the events that occurred, compiling a log showing that the harassment was endemic not singular. I read and educated myself on local and state laws and communicated with Law Enforcement on procedures like ‘how to make a citizen’s arrest’ and how and when to call in noise violations. Law enforcement is limited in their resources, so unless faced with imminent danger, property owners must educate themselves on city and state laws dealing with noise and threats before it is a problem, and then be prepared on how to work with law enforcement (like asking for a copy of the report to be filed) after.

This is specifically how we dealt with the situation.

After repeatedly calling police about the noise and threats made to ourselves, we established a pattern of behavior at the residence. I admit, I did not call the police each time a disturbance occurred, and in retrospect I could have been more methodical and consistent in the calls. I am used to dealing with my own problems, so calling the SDPD each and every time there was a noise problem was just not my style. This, in the end, actually delayed dealing with the problem as it took longer to prove the pattern existed without a constant stream of calls about disturbances.

Tip: if you are dealing with a problem your neighbors are dealing with it too, coordinate together and work out a rotation of whose turn it is to call the police. This spreads the responsibility around and helps the authorities recognize this is a community and not an individual threat.

Documentation of problems is a key foundation. Without it, you can’t build yourself a solution. It requires dedication and vigilance to your task. Once a pattern of behavior is established, you can engage in litigation.

Ah, the L word. Litigation. Lawyers. Lawsuits.

They all send shivers up our spines. They do mine. Some are fortunate to have a family member or friend who knows or practices law. I had to call the San Diego Bar Association and get recommendations on whom to engage in the specialized law that covers neighbor disputes. Lawsuits are ugly, costly and require a lot of time to engage. Neighbor lawsuits are all of this, and have the added trait of not concluding to anyone’s satisfaction and/or resulting in suit/countersuit claims. I had to take vacation time to interview with a lawyer. I had to spend months of our paychecks on his fees. He generated a letter to be delivered to the property owner with a draft lawsuit stating the nature of the events that had taken place and that if eviction did not occur, the lawsuit would be filed. More importantly, the lawyer is more familiar with the realm of evictions, the procedures, and the rights of the homeowner and tenants. He knows what to ask and how to ask it.

The final step was execution.

The ‘line’ of propriety where a renter goes from ‘general nuisance’ to ‘public menace’ is squishy. They knew the system, and knew that if they kept quiet for the 30 day window the law gives between incidents, SDPD would have difficulty taking decisive action without decisive proof. That moment came. The great irony is that the same phone number that I had been calling and leaving messages with the property owner on about problems with his tenants that had been ignored for over eight months was immediately answered when a member of the SDPD placed a call. The homeowner answered (what a surprise). The SDPD informed him that a minimum $7,000 fine PER NEIGHBOR HOUSEHOLD DISTURBED could be levied on the property owner. The letter of draft lawsuit was delivered the next day. To borrow from Sun Tzu: application of force is a last resort, but overwhelming force should be used when applied.

The property owner, agreed to evict his family and their partners by May 4th. It was the first week in April now. We waited. The noise continued as did some harassment, but we remained hopeful that the end was close. Would the homeowner do the right thing and evict his sister and her family?
The owner had said to me when he first purchased the property that he had bought it as an investment, and to give his sister and her family a nice place to live. At the time we thought it a noble act. He failed to add that nearly everyone preparing to move in had an arrest record of some sort. With a few basic Google searches of public records, we uncovered assault, under-aged DUI with a false ID resulting in an accident which nearly killed an off-duty officer, and more. If I may surmise, they moved to San Diego to start fresh under the patronage of their brother/uncle. Where they failed is they chose to bring along old habits. It became my misfortune to tolerate then intercede in their behavior and domestic violence over the last year.

The combined cooperation of the community, the city, the criminal justice system, civil courts, friends and neighbors, provided the overwhelming force applied to bring eviction. Our problem renter/neighbors’ left peacefully that Thursday without flare; the opposite of the arrogant confidence they exhibited following each visit from San Diego police. We did not celebrate (as many suggested we do) but the sense of relief was palpable. The stress and tension of being alert for danger for months lifted, and my family went to bed early that night and got our first full night sleep, undisturbed, for months. I tell people I am happy that I could open my daughter’s bedroom window for the first time since last summer.

And what of our now ex-renter/neighbors?

We have moved forward with our lives to not waste any more of our lifetime on them. Chance would have it a crime alert application gave us a surprise. The same young man who had threatened the SDPD at Christmas, climbed the fence outside my daughter room, the nephew of the property owner? He was arrested just a week after eviction for carrying a concealed dirk or dagger, and resisting arrest. His arrest was completely independent of our lives, but given our experiences with him, inevitable.

I want to thank all the people in the Ocean Beach area, the Town Council, the OB Rag, our family, friends, neighbors, the San Diego Police Department Western Division, and the City of San Diego for all lending us help. To quote Charles Frederic Aked:

“It has been said that for evil men to accomplish their purpose it is only necessary that good men should do nothing.”

Thank you, everyone, for acting