A dozen plus tenants in a million-dollar hood
Foreclosure rattles upscale San Jose neighborhood, and tenants
By Pete Carey, San Jose Mercury News
Posted: 03/14/2012 05:53:36 PM PDT, Updated: 03/15/2012 10:14:37 AM PDT
The two-story home in the East San Jose foothills could belong to any well-to-do family, but step through the door and you’re inside a million-dollar suburban foreclosure quagmire.
More than a dozen adults and their pets have been living in a warren of rented rooms in the foreclosed house, turning a tranquil cul-de-sac into what one upset neighbor called "a nightmare for all of us living on that block."
According to attorneys for the tenants, the former owner was renting out rooms — including the laundry room and a living room split in two — in the months after the home was foreclosed by the bank. They claim she never told tenants about the foreclosure. Now the tenants face eviction in a hearing to be held Thursday in Santa Clara County Superior Court.
San Jose police officers have responded 16 times since September to resolve disputes and disturbances at the five bedroom, four bath home on La Castellet Court, where houses are valued at $1 million or more. The city’s code enforcement department says it has an open case on the house.
Remember the Cubicle House? This owner simply took that idea one step further now that rentals beat office space.
For all of you who have been criticizing the idea of The Real Bay Area versus The Part That Is Not, this should definitively settle those arguments. Things like this simply Do Not Happen In The Real Bay Area. If someone in Los Altos Hills were to notice 15 cars parked along the street in front of the 4,000 square foot housing tumor next door, Code Enforcement would not merely say they have “an open case on the house.”
And in Palo Alto, every one of those vehicles would have collected parking tickets within 2 hours and 10 minutes.
Anyway, our intrepid reporters have tracked down the house in question.
Unfortunately for purposes of journalistic outrage, the Streetview photo does not have the aforementioned excess vehicle collection.
Zillow can show us the neighborhood values.
Homeowners here certainly may have paid over a million for this area, but Zillow has a disturbing lack of faith in their reported valuations. The expressway-like street against the backyards is Aborn.
And if you’re wondering why the FB felt the need to fill this home chock-a-block with tenants while hiding from Bank of America, wait until you hear the bubblicious price paid for this place: $1,580,000 on Halloween of 2006.
