Evicting the problem

How much easier it is to punish the innocent - Homeland security comes home

Published on March 10, 2005 By Phil Osborn In Current Events

Update: 04/12/05

Well. Done at last! Almost, anyway. The room that I thought I had nailed down to rent while I reorganized all my stuff disappeared when the owner had her sister run a credit check and discovered that I had no credit history prior to 1999. Of course not! I paid cash or check or money order and only finally broke down and got a credit card when it became too cumbersome to deal that way on line.

So, all my years of avoiding the horrendous charges and worries about credit theft mean that I don't exist! Actually, I understand that the sister is not in favor of renting to "strange men" anyway, so my guess is that I looked too perfect, with all the extensive references I can call upon, such as editors of the local paper, for whom I've written editorials. Since she doesn't want her sister to rent to begin with, what she may be looking for is someone more marginal or with traits that will make life unpleasant and thereby convince her sister ultimately not to rent out rooms at all.

So, backup plan one: move in temporarily with a friend. That worked, so far, anyway.

Meanwhile - see my prior articles about the gang that wrecked my life for a year - as we were moving stuff out of my old place, surprise, surprise... First, the ugly fat woman with the foul mouth and acid personality and her similarly endowed mother who rented the unit to the East of me showed up, having been invisable for the past several months. She's the one who had the young Hispanic boyfriend - or so I gathered at the time - who grabbed my camera and threatened to beat me up when I took photos of the license plates of the gang vehicles as they were packing up to leave when they were finally evicted.

Then, even more surprising, in the last couple of days of moving, blondie shows up - the rangy 30-something hustler who ramrodded the gang for the old patriarch, the woman who everyone immediately assumes is on meth, the one who scuttled around the parking lot on all fours during the wee hours, hiding behind vehicles while spying on the various businesses. Goes by the name Sandy. It's been several months since she got herself and the gang kicked out of the commercial storage site, after trashing it the same way they did next door - immediately to the West of my units. So, I doubt that this is accident.

A local street hustler who goes by the name Reid - a homeless guy who lives in his VW van and works on motorcycles, rebuilding them to sell - had offered to help me move earlier, but I had some doubts as to his trustworthiness. Reid showed up in the last couple days as well and offered to help clean out Unit D, which was strictly fixed storage. And he did a pretty good job, for about an hour or so, and I don't think that he stole (very much, anyway). Then I noticed him coming out of Unit E, in animated conversation with Sandy! Turns out they all know one another. Small world. Can I get off now, please?

So very much would I prefer not being anywhere near these creeps that I am certain that it is that very fact that entices them to force their fetid lowlife awefulness upon me, no matter how I try to avoid them. That's their method of bargaining. Find someone's weakness or vulnerability and then attack, and then make them pay to have it stop. These people are fundamentally evil. They feed off anything good, and they can sense that I have something or other of value, even though what they are sensing is nothing they can materially profit by. But they attack on instinct. Human predators and vultures, leaving a wake of undending misery.

I'll bet that blondie gets the mother/daugter harpies to rent my former two units now and then goes right back into business trashing the whole place all over again.

On the issue of the involvement of the City of Santa Ana, I am less certain now. At least I had a reasonably good experience with them granting me a last minute waiver to park in the "No-Stopping" zone in front of my units while loading. Of course, this is a completely different branch of the City bureaucracy than the PD. Note to the reader: If you are moving and need to load in a zone where you normally can't stop, check with the city traffic control to see about getting a waiver. It can really help.

See my article - one of several - describing the Hell I went through at my humble crash pad, due to the total irresponsibility of the management company, MSL Properties of Orange, CA, which was taken advantage of by a little criminal gang.

Update: 04/04/05 So, Duane and I are making these backbreaking endless multiple treks from my old storage units to the new ones, and, late Saturday night, I note that am being followed by this guy on a bicycle. When we arrive at the new units, I recognize the guy as this hispanic man who I had seen days before rummageing through the dumpsters. I had traded a couple of old CDs I had at hand for some new cellphone pouches he had found.

So, this guy followed us for a reason... He has a message for ME: "The city does not like you...." Duane also witnessed this. Interesting. Perhaps more disasters will follow, bankrupting me and forcing me out on the street for real. However, I will still have internet access, folks!

I wonder how long it will take "the City" to realize that every problem they create for me means millions of dollars lost for them, as I have quite a good standing in the search engines. All I have to do is enter "Santa Ana and corruption," or "Santa Ana and police manufacturing crack," or Santa Ana and gang violence, or Santa Ana and murder rates, or Santa Ana and homeless.... I could go on. And on. Already, in just the past few minutes, I have likely cost "the City" a few thousand dollars.

And, it's ALL TRUE! Yes!

Update: 03/29/05 Well, the plot thickens. I'm now considering the possible connection with the anti-police-brutality case. A few weeks after I spoke at the Santa Ana City Council, requesting that they take a serious look at what went down when a group of apparently peaceful marchers were apparently brutalized - for protesting police brutality, in the middle of the night - literally about 3AM - a tremendously bright light was shown into my unit for a few seconds through a small open area in my window next to the entrance door. I probably should have just kept quiet, as only the police use those kind of lights, but I reacted in my sleepy annoyance by yelling "GET OUTA HERE!.".

According to Duane , one of the organizers of the anti-police-brutality march, other people who spoke on their behalf have also had similar strange occurrences. Of course, under the new laws, the police or especially the feds - and aren't a lot of those protestors suspiciously dark in skin, just like ARABs! or Lebanese! or Al Quida? - can secretly invade your home or business and log into your computer and put in backdoors, all without a warrant or a specific crime in mind....

So, were they there to establish that someone was sleeping in the unit? Or did they plan to burglarize it in a fishing expedition? Who knows? Duane is looking into it via his connections. Meanwhile, I'm getting kicked in the teeth with this. Every morning I awaken about 5 AM with another anxiety attack. Suddenly the pain just seems to descend and I find myself in a kind of fugue state, running the events of the past couple years - the gang that moved in next door, the destruction of ALH&Co., the "horseplay" attack in January that has me going for physical therapy now and for the indefinite future, and a half dozen other events, culminating not in any relief, but in a sudden overwhelming demand upon my physical resources in this notice to quit. Not looking for pity, just trying to paint a picture of what this kind of thing means to anyone going through it.....

BTW: here's my post on the subject from Nalini's www.kpfkchat.org:.

"I attended the "young democrats" meeting in Tustin for the third time. This time the speaker discussed this whole new schtick (sp?) about morals and how the right has captured the issue and how the right has this benevolent but stern father knows best model for society, while the left has the nurturing feminine take.... Stuff that Ian Masters covered some months ago..

Since the speaker referred to 1984 and the need to maintain a lower class to keep the rest in line, out of fear of falling to that level, I brought up the homeless issue, as in how the Santa Ana Armory allows a few hundred people to sleep in close proximity on the floor, but does not allow them to sleep in relative safety and sanitary isolation in their vehicles in the parking lot..

Similarly, Santa Ana has some huge redevelopment project in the works subtitled "live where you work," and they allow the artistes downtown in the Santoria building to live in their studios, but not the un-chosen artists who live in a similar building only blocks away, since the city has not sponsored them. The OC Register covered the plight of the non-state-sponsored artists who are being threatened with eviction for doing exactly what the city-sponsored artists are allowed to do a hundred yards away..

Meanwhile, they selectively prosecute the people living in business units. After I attended a Santa Ana City Council meeting and spoke in support of the kids who were apparently brutalized by the cops after stageing an anti-police brutality rally a few months back - and then charged with attacking the cops! - a few weeks later, at about 3AM, this super bright light was shined into my unit where I was attempting to sleep, and I heard voices outside, sounding like cops. I yelled out "Get outa here!".

So, a couple weeks later, I get the "notice to quit." (At the City Council meeting, I had to give them my address and name to be allowed to speak.) Dwayne - one of the defendants and organizers of the anti-police-brutality march and rally - tells me that other people who spoke have apparently gotten some sort of harrassment as well..

They were supposed to have had a support meeting to raise funds for their defense at the new El Centro location, but then I got an email from the OC Peace Coalition informing me that the support meeting had been cancelled by El Centor due to pressure and threats from the Santa Ana police. .

"We've been informed that the fundraiser for anti-war demonstrators arrested in LA last November, originally scheduled for this Saturday night (tomorrow) at the Centro Cultural de Mexico in Santa Ana has been unfortunately cancelled, due to pressure from the Santa Ana Police Department..

The organizers received notice too late to find another venue..

We are also informed that a protest against this police pressure will be held on the sidewalk across the street from the Centro (2100 N. Main St.) at the time originally scheduled for the fundraiser (7 PM).

(So, the new plan was to have a demonstration in front of El Centro, but when I got there last Saturday night, I was informed that that was cancelled as well....) www.el-centro.org, Daryl Vaughn 714-457-8983.
"
So it goes. Why the cops even CARE about the crew that typically shows up for these protests, etc., is beyond me. I mean these people are about as threatening as one of those little tiny pekinese dogs that bark their heads off as though they could actually eat you. But I suppose this is preemptive for the cops. Beat up the kids and you don't have to worry about the others. They think. Meanwhile, I gotta find a place to crash before April 8th. " For the past 13+ years, I have been paying my rent to MSL for first one and then two 500 square foot office industrial units, where I play with my computers and crash at night. I write freelance and am also working on a major book on the nature of corruption and management, and I frequently get involved with various minor social or political ventures as well, such as providing computers to low-income home schoolers or joining with others to oppose social ills, such as the 3-Strikes laws, or the kids in Santa Ana who recently put on a march against police brutality, ending with them getting beaten up by the police, and then charged with assaulting the police as well (or so the video tape seems to show).

Such is my life, as well as a full-time day job doing web design and graphics for a Chinese manufacturer, and working out every other day at the gym, and giving occasional seminars at conferences, and attending lectures at UCI whenever I can afford the time.

So, why is MSL evicting me? Apparently, the fact that I, like about 1/3 of the business tenants in the these light industrial office / warehouse parks locally, was sleeping in my unit! Horrors. How perverse! AND, I ride a motorcycle - a hulking Honda 650 Honda-red nighthawk.

This will doubtless cost me a few thousand dollars that could have bought me more conference time, a better computer, a much newer motorcycle or even car! Etc. It is going to be hell to move. If you check out my articles on my experiences there at my units, you may note what things are apparently NOT as bad as riding a motorcycle or sleeping, such as:

Selling drugs off the front landing. Practicing a rock band at a volume sufficient to make it impossible for anyone in the area to hear their telephone, much less concentrate on their work (or sleep). Fixing hot cars in the parking lot. Subletting to ones' 14 habitual drunk homeless people and filling all the gutters with beer bottle every day for months. Throwing a power cable over the roof and leaving it there for months for use on car repair (two direct violations of lease). Blocking other tenants access to their units for periods of hours or days. Running heavy equipment in violation of the lease terms, such that your neighbors are unable to get any peace or quiet. Physically threatening other tenants.

None of those resulted in evictions until months or even years had passed.... Meanwhile many industrial parks rent to businesspeople who intend to live in their units without a problem. Just in the little section of 8 units I'm in, there were recently three other units in which tenants were living. The gang had as many as six people living in unit B, next to me, for about a year. And the previous renters of my two units included at least two live-ins before I rented them. The same applies to the larger units. Not only do at least a dozen people live in them at present, but they also store about twenty vehicles in the central parking lot while they are sleeping.

Many small one-person businesses could not survive if they had to pay rent on both the business unit and an apartment. Many cities either have no law concerning the practice or look the other way unless there is a complaint. Even one Santa Ana real estate agent just told me - speaking very precisely and deliberately - that "since I had disclosed that I would be living in my unit" then she could not rent to me - due to the current climate, in which they had to check out everyone carefully. It was clear in context that she was referring to terrorism and homeland security.

Anybody ever heard how people sleeping in business units are just naturally conducive to terrorism? But, I believe her. From the SavOn drug store managers going bananas over my backpack, which their own cashier insisted I leave at the counter, to the persecution of political radicals or tax resistors via multiple routes, such as silent break-ins and computer taps, or demands for records without a warrant, all of which would have been illegal to use - in fact, considered unconstitutional in the extreme - prior to 9/11 - and the aftermath of the state taking full advantage of the panic to rush through attrocities like the Patriot Act, we are seeing Amerika moving steadily toward a total surveillance society, run at the behest of the corporate state. That kind of top-down authoritarian government is typically not very tolerant of your free market deviants who simply want to live their own lives.

Typically, in fact, the crooks and psychopaths adapt to the system as it becomes inevitably more corrupt. The perpetual jailbirds live on being snitches, making up confessions, and the gangs flourish, always prepared to bring forward multiple "witnesses" to back up their lies.

The ironic and infuriating part of this is that the same City of Santa Ana has provided unused industrial/business units to artists in the downtown area, who are encouraged to live in what had previously been illegal locations, in an attempt to bring "culture" to Santa Ana. Not being an artist, supposedly, I don't qualify. And, a couple blocks from the official artist village, there is another huge old building which a large crew of other artists have taken over on their own - written up in the OC Register recently - and the city is threatening to evict them, because that building is not zoned for residence - any more than the official artist village building was until the City changed its status with a stoke of legal pen.

In my case, I suspect that there was a complaint. A couple of the current residents actually became friends of the gang that trashed the whole area, and when the gang was finally evicted, they blamed me, even though I had shut my mouth completely after my initial complaint to MSL had resulted in retaliation against me for complaining. Those tenants have likely been hassling Valerie at MSL, is my guess, or calling the City and pointing it to Val, until she - as usual, from my years of dealing with her - goes after the victim, instead of standing up to the jerks who are the actual problem.

Typical of her management: When I moved from Unit B to Units C and D, back in 2000, the sink in the bathroom of Unit B was propped up with a board. It wasn't loose. The board was there because MSL's own plumber had suggested it, because the idiot in Unit A kept pounding on the wall so hard, doing various contruction projects, that he knocked the sink right off the wall, breaking the caulk seal. Valerie, as always utterly ignorant as to the actual details of maintenance, insisted that I had "destroyed the sink" somehow by putting the board there - at the advice of her own plumber. This and similar items she used to justify keeping my security deposit.

Shortly thereafter, I got notice that a new roof was going on, but that everything would be covered and protected and it would only take a week at most. Guess how that went....

How about - a month to complete, no covering until after it rained into the units, no protection and a computer of mine stolen, and they didn't replace the roof, they just pretended and fixed bits and pieces. That's MSL/Valerie.

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