Mark's Notebook


	If you believe everything you read, better not read. - Japanese Proverb

The neighbor from hell

San Francisco Chronicle

Friday 17 February 2006, 12:46 pm
Keywords: News Articles

I thought we had the neighbor from hell, but then I read about this one in San Leandro ...

'Dream' vehicles turn nightmarish

by Chip Johnson

The other day there were 11 vehicles at the home of Russ Daniels on Lewis Avenue in San Leandro, a fleet that included two trucks, two boats, two vans and three trailers used for various chores.

Neighbors are fed up with the battered convertibles, the bashed-in yellow BMW and the truck he keeps "for parts" on a trailer outside his home, and they want the city to force Daniels to clean up his act.

Last month, Daniels paid more than $3,000 in fines -- a six-month accumulation of parking tickets and citations for unregistered vehicles.

During the last five years, Daniels' Noah-like quest to gather two of every kind of vehicle imaginable -- and other items you couldn't describe -- has driven his neighbors completely bonkers. His eclectic collection has been the subject of conversation among a homeowners group of 1,500 members, at city planning commission meetings and at this week's City Council meeting, where blight was addressed.

Scott Warner, a Lewis Avenue resident who's tangled with Daniels, told the council that the city's efforts to keep Daniels in line have been ineffective. "You can't leave a trailer, a motor home and oversized vehicles out in the street, and have five in the backyard as well," Warner said. "This has been going on for at least three years." Warner recently presented the City Council with a petition bearing the signatures of 42 neighbors who want the city to force Daniels to remove his vehicles and clean up his yard.

In the last year, the tense relations that existed between Daniels and some of his neighbors have begun to boil over. His vehicles have been vandalized on several occasions.

Daniels realizes he isn't being neighborly. "I don't think it's OK to park all the vehicles here," he said. "Look at the hate that it's generated. It offends people."

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/02/17/JOHNSON.TMP&nl=top