GLORIA BARN

Gloria Barn

The Things That Happened There

Gloria Barn was an important structure at Rancho Arbole Grande. It was there when we first arrived. We were told later that it came from Watts, L.A. After the riots and fire, many parts of Watts had to be cleared before people could move back. This building had been a two story steel structure. The ‘I’ beams were welded into place. Its ‘skin’ was corrugated metal sheets. These plated all four sides and the peaked roof.

The metal was at salvage prices. The major expense was to cut it apart, transport and re-erect it in place. The place was near Gloria Road on the West side of the property.ld no longer be a two-story building. The machines available would only reach part way up the girders. The men cut them off at that point and welded the heavy metal frame back together, the roof members held the walls vertical. The enclosed area worked out to be 40 X 40 feet, 1600 Sq. Ft.

A large rectangle, opening, was left on the south side. The east and west sides were ventilated by pairs of glassless window openings. Hinged wooden shutters were swung to close these openings. A small doorway was cut into the northeast corner. This was access to the stable. (There was a three or four feet spacing between the two buildings.) (This proved to be the north/south property line for two of the three parcels that made up Rancho Arbole Grande.)

Three or four 4 X 8 sheets of metal roofing were omitted from the roof, on each side of the peak. Sheets of corrugated plastic were placed there to shed rain and provide daylight in the dark spaces below.

This was a good idea but strong south winds blew in through the large opening and out the roof. The plastic sheets were ‘gone with the wind’. The skylights functioned well. The infrequent rain fell to the dirt floor. (More water than that which fell from the sky.) The corrugations directed three times that amount, into each opening.

A chain link, division fence ran the full length of the barn. Horse corrals connected here for free access. There was no barn door to leave open! Or to close either. The barn was just a covered part of the corral. The floor was horse-ankle deep in old manure and chaff.

The east half of the barn was a machine shop. An old, Ferguson, tractor was permanently parked there. Its disassembled engine was scattered on a workbench along with parts of an old Buick. (There weren’t enough parts to fix the tractor or a Buick!) Dust storms had deposited a heavy coat of dirt on the oily surfaces. No one had worked here in a long, long time.

The barn and its contents rested while I readied the dwellings for tenants. More and more old stuff accumulated there. Non-working refrigerators, broken furniture and most of a wrecked sports car filled the floor space.

I built two large sliding barn doors. These were as tall as I could make and have wall enough to open them wide. These were built on the cement floor of the stable. They were flat and squared properly. They proved to be almost too heavy to lift and maneuver out the smaller stable door! It was nearly the case of the boat built in the basement! (Just too big to get out.)

I set a socket in cement so that the two doors could be locked shut. The security bar was on the inside. Access was thru the small side door on the east. There was water piped there and both 120V and 220 V power inside too. Gloria barn was ready to rent.

(The two doors were suspended from an overhead track and rolled easily to close the large opening.)

The People That Came to Stay

I think that the first to rent the barn was a single mother. It wasn’t for herself exactly. Her son collected classic cars. They crowded her garage, driveway and back yard. These cars needed lots of work on engines and bodies too. It seemed easier to collect more cars than to fix the ones on hand.

The barn space was filled with these cars. They were parked too closely to open the doors. When parking space was filled, the center isle was filled too. The last to seal off the area was a boat on a trailer. Put in place by hand.

Most importantly, the cars were out of sight. There were security lights and enough other tenants living nearby to discourage theft. The cars were out of the sun but thick dust covered them more as the months went by.

Eventually the mother moved where there would be room for the cars. The son could work on them without leaving home. The space was for rent again.

The Gypsy Painter

The white couple had already rented the #1 house. We were ready to leave for a vacation and didn’t bother to check their backgrounds. (It was months later that we learned that they were Gypsies.) They also wanted to rent Gloria Barn. Their income came from restoring autos that had been ‘written off’ by insurance companies.

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There is a gray area where an auto is fixed by insurance, or is junked as not worth repair. The owner is paid what the car was worth at the time of the accident. Not what its replacement would cost. There is money to be made in this shadow zone.

Our tenant showed me how to see the smallest imperfection in bodywork. (It is by reflection. (Mirrored images are reflected light that has doubled its lateral variation.) The incident angle and the reflected angle are equal and additive. This is best seen at night under artificial light. All this explains why the tenant wanted to work outside at night with bright lights filling the country sky.

Country neighbors prize the darkness and the quiet! They call out door lights, light -pollution. Soon I was receiving complaints about fenders being hammered out at night and welding arcs flashing beacons across their places.

There were other tenant troubles. The #1 house had a nice swimming pool, pump, filter etc. These people didn’t swim. Instead, they kept ducks! (A scummy pool is very dangerous as it is impossible to see an accident victim on the bottom.) Now, a duck pond, the water thickened, grasses grew, frogs jumped and the pool painting failed. Somehow, corn stalks were doing nicely! All of this happened in a short time. During this time no rent was being paid.

On the back porch was an incubation battery of white quail eggs. (These were considered a delicacy. I was offered some as a treat. ) They also kept a variety of caged birds. At least one large parrot was allowed free flight indoors.

Not only did they not pay their rent charges, they didn’t pay the electric service either. S.C. Edison cut off the power. The tenant jumped the meter. I came back from my supper in Sun City and saw a searchlight in the sky. It seemed to be located at Rancho Arbole Grande. Closer I saw some trucks. One large truck with a spot light trained on the transformer pole. A man was up there in the dark physically cutting off the power with long shears.

I had hoped that this would encourage the tenant to vacate. Instead, he cracked the cement and broke off a pipe in the laundry room, moving in a large gasoline driven alternator.

(Later when I was preparing to re-rent #1 house, I was glad that I checked the power panel. The tenant had strapped across the 220v bus so that he could feed all the breakers with his 120V system! (If normal power had been restored, his strap would have been a dead short.)

He sold a white Thunderbird to his father and with the money, stalled his eviction for another month.

I found that he had parked his mother in a travel trailer in the barn. I couldn’t allow that. “You can’t keep your poor old mother in the barn!” It was a horse facility. There was no toilet. She was using a bucket stabilized with bits of old hay scooped off the barn floor!

Next, he pulled the trailer up to his gate, parked it on the sloped driveway. Still with no toilet, the mother was living inside the tilted metal box.

I felt ashamed as I beat on the trailer till the frightened mother finally answered the door.

THE [ MURDER ]

April 1991

Sometimes, tenants leave and others, family or strangers move in. Then, the Landlord is faced with evictions for people who have signed no contract. These are living free and prevent the use of the property by the owner! Current law protects the squatter more, and the landlord less. The Landlord is still responsible for the condition of the property for which he has lost control! This happened as the tenants left #1 house.

(Another curious ruling makes the landlord responsible for feeding and care of horses left behind!)

The tenant and his pregnant wife have intermittently disappeared. (This is the tenant mentioned in the story about the barnburner) Also the tenant that housed the people in the following story.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A Mexican lady is helping care for the house and all the animals. Her son and his ‘friend’ from Guatemala were seen in the open field below their house, circling each other in a menacing way. One with a large rock held aloft, the other with a large machete in his hand.

I watched them. The rock was thrown. (Too heavy to pitch, it dropped short.) The other man easily stepped aside. The ‘fight’ seemed to be over. Later they came up the road by #3, together, and both spoke to me. I went on into Sun City for my supper and came back after dark. I was undressing for bed when my widowed, neighbor at Keller road called. She was overly excited. She said frantically, “Come on down here right away. The police are here and asking about your tenants!” (They were non-tenants.) Some how, it was, all, my fault! I pulled my boots back on and drove down our drive to Keller Road. There I met a Sheriff car. I stopped and was asked about these several people.

This is what the Sheriff was told; The single little blond tenant in #2 was visiting the Single Paralegal neighbor, when a car came down the hill, (our drive) chasing a man on a bicycle. They crossed Keller and sped on through standing stubble into the field to the south. (You could see the pair of tracks where the car wheels had crushed the wheat stubble, stopping at the creek bank.) The women were, and are, certain that the man on the bike was killed. They called the police. The event escalated into an all out search with a circling helicopter, spotlight, dogs and the border guards! (Immigration) I made the mistake of saying that, if the man was killed, it was a good place, as the area is to be developed by Rose Hills Memorial Park! It was true but not funny. I thought that it was all over…..

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Saturday morning I was working outside #3 when a Hispanic man walked by me, from the hills, to the #1 house. We speak, after a fashion, and he says that he lives in L.A. but comes from Guatemala. I think that he is the DEAD man! He puts the big parrot out on the front porch to enjoy him self and prepares his own breakfast.

A short time later, the same two women, are now visiting at the #2 house, I am working in the shop with the big door open. I see a man jump the fence and set off across the ranch. (These women had called the Sheriff again!)

Very soon, the official car pulled in where we had been standing. Now, I knew why the man had fled. The horsewomen yell for the car to chase after the man.

So, he was apprehended and brought back. The officer wants to use the phone, but not the one in my shop.

The ‘bad’ man has his jacket pulled down half way so that the sleeves act as a restraint. He is placed in the back seat, (like they do on TV). I am asked to see that he doesn’t run away again. We just look at each other and say nothing. The officer asks, ”Has a crime been committed?” The over hyped women are outraged!

(Eventually the man is returned to immigration and on to repatriation.)

But now, the women are three. Another tenant has joined in. They surround the car and loudly berate the sheriff for not making a proper arrest for the Murder! Wasn’t blood found on the shovel in the abandoned car? They had SEEN the CRIME and the BODY wasn’t found.

I had asked them not to speak to the Sheriff like that. Their anger was then shared with me! The third one said a bad thing about me. I said that she knew better than that. (She once had asked me to pray for her boyfriend!)

Note: These are some of the “Single Women with Horses” that I have described in the chapter,’ Horses and’

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THE MAN WITH THE UP TURNED NOSE

Gloria Barn next hosted the stuff belonging to an interesting young couple. The wife was saving many boxes of stuff that had been or was to be saleable in a small store. The cardboard boxes stacked up higher than my head. The man’s space was filled with several old cars and the tools for working on them. He must have owned a shop. He was storing fixtures inside and several small portable buildings outside the barn.

He was to help me with some projects on the ranch. One was to line a swamp cooler with fiberglass. He had the material but it never happened. Other things indicated that something was wrong with his thinking, not about everything and not all the time.

-------- First, the story of the clay tile.--------

I had been promised a small one room building on a neighboring ranch. It was for the taking. (Free) It was packed with chest high stacks of roofing tiles on pallets. They were leftovers from a number of jobs. No one wanted them after they saw the many styles and shapes. With help, I moved several pickup loads of tile to my ranch. I knew how much they weighed and how much work it would be to empty the building. The tons of tile had pressed the mudsills down out of sight during the rains. It was impossible to move the building, even after it was emptied. (We didn’t know that.) I’ll call the man Sam. Sam would move the tile for me. I explained about the weight and estimated total of tile. Sam put chain around a loaded pallet and attached it to his four-wheel drive jeep. He lashed the steering wheel, had the jeep pulling, slipping all four wheels. Sam hooked his truck to the unoccupied jeep and added that power to the task. The effort tore out the differential. Later, he managed to bring several stacks of tile to the ranch.

This quantity of tile proved to be nothing but trouble. We used it to line a ditch. The water tumbled the un-cemented trough, causing tile to stand on end and block the stream. Children found the tiles an attractive nescience. We found that crushing tile for road ballast was too laborious. It was eventually used to be a filter bed for a septic system.

I couldn’t budge the small building with two house jacks. It still stands there with its own steep, tile roof.

Sam didn’t get along well with the #5 tenant. (This house was closest to the barn.) I have described the #5 tenant. (The one who screwed the front door shut and kept the Rotwilers.) Sam detailed his personal, confrontation. Sam was much smaller of the two but stood up to him. Sam had been starting a small engine and had a small can of gasoline in his hand. When the real fight would have begun, Sam splashed the gas on to his opponent and took out his cigarette lighter. This threat balanced the fight and it never happened. A good thing for all three of us.

Sam explained his scarred and misshaped nose to me one day. I hadn’t asked but he said that it had been through surgery. One day he felt something under his nose and pulled it out. It was a plastic stint! He left it out and now the nostrils face forward.

Sam owed rent like many of my tenants. He was to leave me some of his things to use on he ranch. - Like the small storage buildings- but when he left, he took everything. That is exactly what I wished that the next tenant would have done!

THE TENANT’S TENANT

This tenant stored someone-else’s stuff! When he couldn’t or wouldn’t pay the rent, he moved away. I had inherited a barn full of stuff. The barnyard was trashed too. (I think that the tenant had taken money for storage or had “Salvaged this stuff” i.e. had taken possession of abandoned property.) The largest and heaviest item was a steam, cleaning, rig with a high, pressure pump. This was all on one metal chassis with the oil furnace.

[--Landlords face this condition many times. Household stuff, garages full of junk and sometimes, valuable items. Stolen property is a problem. Quantities of toxic materials can be abandoned in this way. --]

I used a special rental contract for storage tenants. I restricted toxic and flammable storage and could inspect the area at any time. I had wavers of responsibility for the stored items. This included damage from rodents, dirt and water. I never allowed people to live there, even in their own vehicles.

I posted Notices: “Belief of abandonment” After the required waiting period, I, with help, moved the whole load outside onto the barn driveway. Then I saw what was involved.

I identified larger things like: a motorized hospital bed, a park bench, dead potted plants, clothing, kitchen stuff, bent metal cabinets, a kitchen counter, plus a tangled mat of little stuff out of the boxes. Cloth, paper, toys, sickroom supplies, study manuals and loose parts of things.

Carlos was a big help. (We will meet him in another chapter.) He and some helpers separated out the metal and recyclable items. Gleaning, where they could, stuff for them selves. This took parts of several days. I could see the piles stacking up. It really looked worse as they worked at cleaning it up. Most important Carlos had his own place to dump everything else!

Even the experienced Carlos had trouble loading the steam cleaner

At last, Gloria barn was empty again. After scuffing across the dirt floor, I decided to bring in the tractor and grading blade. I was able to set the blade to move the loose litter with out digging into the hard surface of the packed dirt floor. I made repeated passes out the large barn doorway. It was like scraping scraps off a large dish. This was the cleanest this floor had been since the Watts Riots.

The ‘bad’ tenant had done a nice thing! He had hauled enough pea, gravel to cover the barn floor and the driveway outside. This kept down the dust and provided the first ‘floor’ except dirt, that Gloria Barn had ever had.

There were times that the barn stood empty. Even though rented! A string of bare 100 -watt bulbs stretched the length of the highest part of the pitched roof. The sockets hung down a foot or so from the feed wires. It took both hands to screw a bulb, in or out! The swaying, vertical, ladder already required one hand! As a result, it wasn’t unusual to see one or two lights out.

The space between the barn and the stable to the south was too small to use and big enough to be a problem. Half of the run off of both roofs fell into this strip. It had to be closed to stock. Also, it was a bad place for children to play.

I sealed off the opening to Gloria Rd. and covered it with a corrugated metal sheet. It looked like the two buildings touched each other. The stable had a cement floor with a gutter running through the center isle. Some six horse stalls opened to this isle. Half doors closed both the east and west walls. There was also room to stack baled hay here. A larger door allowed a pickup sized truck to deliver hay. For a time I parked my tractor in this area. The stable was cleaner than some of the dwellings! The old WW2, Ford, tractor faired better than the tenants! (Except when foolishly set afire.)

The tin roof had been used before. The unused nail holes sprinkled sunshine onto the darkened floor. These spots were shaped like the sun and moved as the sun moved. (When there was an eclipse, I saw these round spots changed into small crescents that were a safe way to watch the phenomenon in the sky.)

A tenant in #2 carried off a number of my tools but left behind an old swivel rocker. I kept it in my shop corner of the stable. I found it a pleasant place to rest, in the cool shade or from a spring shower.) (Baled hay is an excellent, air-freshener.)

The stable had its own cat, to go with the hay and a few mice that lived there too. The stable cat entered over the half doors that kept dogs out and horses in.