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Hoping to rid themselves of a neighbor whose home has been targeted by police for over two decades as a drug hot spot, 15 South Berkeley residents filed suit Monday charging the homeowner has created a neighborhood nuisance. 

“I pick up used condoms and crack baggies from the front yard, I deal with shouting crackheads in the middle of the night and I wonder if there will be a drive-by,” said Paul Rauber, a plaintiff and neighbor. 

Rauber said he added his name to the lawsuit last October, when, on the morning after a police raid on his next-door neighbor’s house, his daughter picked up a hypodermic needle from his backyard and asked “daddy, what’s this?” 

“I can’t raise a child in an environment like that,” he said. 

In a suit filed in small claims court, the neighbors are each asking for the maximum $5,000 award from Lenora Moore, the owner of 1610 Oregon St. Group filings of such legal actions, known as nuisance suits, have become a popular and sometimes successful tool for residents seeking to force out neighbors they say damage their quality of life. 

Contacted by telephone at her home Wednesday, Moore, 75, said she hadn’t decided whether or not to bend to neighborhood pressure and sell the home she said her grandparents purchased nearly 90 years ago. 

“I’d like to stay here, I’d like to die here,” said Moore, a life-long Berkeley resident and former president of the South Berkeley Women’s Health Center. She added that family associates were working with her to address neighbors’ concerns and that authorities have issued stay-away orders against several of her family members, who neighbors blame for the drug activity at the house. 

“Things have quieted down,” she said. “I don’t think we are a nuisance.” 

The lawsuit this week is not the first time neighbors have gone to the courts to pressure Moore to sell her home. In 1992 a small claims court judge ordered Moore to pay neighbors $155,000 in damages for hampering their quality of life. 

She refused to pay. Then, on the same day the neighbors moved to freeze the family’s bank accounts, Carl Babcock, the lead plaintiff in the case, said a young man riding a bicycle hurled a Molotov cocktail at his home. 

“Luckily it hit the fence,” said Babcock, who left Berkeley shortly after watching the fence go up in flames. “I think the Moores are very dangerous people.”  

Sam Herbert, a plaintiff, said the reason only 15 neighbors joined the current suit was fear of reprisal. “The fear is real, it’s not baseless,” she said. “I’ve been followed. I’ve had someone drive by my house and point a gun at me.” 

Last October, police raided the house and found cocaine, heroin, packaging materials and a semiautomatic handgun.  

The bust and preceding surveillance operation resulted in five arrests, including two of Lenora Moore’s sons, Ralph Perry, 53, for sales of heroin, possession of cocaine and a probation violation and Alex Perry, 54, for sales of heroin, felony possession of a firearm and a parole violation. 

The brothers got off with probation despite each having a long criminal history. On Jan. 24, Alex Perry was arraigned on possession of a controlled substance (crack) with three prior convictions. He was also prosecuted in June 1993, April 1997, and last November for violating his probation. Ralph Perry’s first controlled substance conviction was on Aug. 2, 1985, though he was convicted of burglary in 1980 and of receiving stolen property seven months later. 

Last June he was arrested at the Oregon Street address on charges of possession of controlled substances and as an ex-felon in possession of ammunition. He was sentenced to 16 months in San Quentin for the drug charge, which was reduced to probation on July 28. After the October arrest for selling heroin, he was granted parole on Dec. 30, 2004 after serving 65 days in jail. 

In the arrest report last October, Berkeley Police Officer Mike Durbin wrote: “The 1600 block of Oregon Street is a heavily documented drug ‘hot spot’ confirmed by drug-related calls for service. 1610 Oregon St. is particularly problematic with numerous complains of street level drug dealing.” 

From Jan. 2003 through Dec. 2004, police received nearly 100 calls for service to 1610 Oregon, according to a city police report. 

“The nuisance at the Moore house has been a subject of constant discussion at every single neighborhood meeting,” said Laura Menard, president of the Russell Oregon California Streets Neighborhood Association and a plaintiff in the suit against Lenora Moore. She said city staff and police address the neighbors regularly with reports on actions at the Moore house. 

When police action failed to abate the problem during the 1990s, former Mayor Shirley Dean said city officials sent in building inspectors to look for code violations. “We were really trying to bring resolution to a long litany of problems at the property,” she said. 

The inspections turned up numerous code violations, but did not succeed in driving the family from the property, Dean said. Ultimately, in 2000, the City Council ordered the Moores to reside at a hotel for several weeks at city expense, while the family paid for repairs. 

When it comes to forcing homeowners from their homes, the city has few options, said Michael Caplan of Berkeley’s problem property team. “Because it’s between private parties on private property there is little we can do,” he said. “The city doesn’t have the power to put someone out of their house for nuisance activity.” 

Caplan said that in similar cases, the city has stepped up police activity at the properties. 

The neighbors are coordinating the case with Oakland-based Neighborhood Solutions. In the past two years, the company has won nuisance suits against UC Berkeley Student Co-op Le Chateau and James Ross, the former owner of a house at Ninth Street and Allston Way that neighbors said was the center of drug activity. Ross sold his house soon after losing a nuisance case and Le Chateau’s management have agreed to transform it into quieter graduate student housing. However, when it comes to collecting money, nuisance suit plaintiffs have been less successful.  

Grace Neufield of Neighborhood Solutions said her clients have not yet collected a dime from the roughly 10 cases they have won. 

“It takes a while to get to the point where you have a lien on the property,” she said, adding that defendants can sometimes use legal maneuvers to avoid paying damages. 

Moore managed not to pay damages from the previous neighborhood suit by filing for bankruptcy, Babcock said.  

If the Moores leave Oregon Street, Rauber said he would be happy not to receive a cent from the nuisance suit. 

“I just want the nuisance to stop. I’m convinced the only way that will happen is if she and her family move,” he said. “What else could we do? It’s worth a try.”