🚨 Sierra Bonita house was magnet for homeless, drug use before fire

Michael McFadden resorted to yelling out his window in the middle of the night to get the homeless people next door at 1030 Sierra Bonita to quiet down.

Over the past two or three weeks, he had called the Sheriff’s Department on multiple occasions to deal with people causing a ruckus in the abandoned home and its two-story carriage house, a stone’s throw from his apartment.

Deputies would come and force them to leave, but they would always come back.

Now, he and his partner are themselves without a home after the fire that broke out in the abandoned house on Thanksgiving crept up inside the walls of their own building, filling the apartment with smoke, destroying everything inside and rendering it uninhabitable.

Michael spoke with WEHOonline on Saturday and shared a number of concerning details, as well as these photos and video. 

@wehoonline Michael McFadden was living in the apartment next-door to 1030 Sierra Bonito which burned down on Thanksgiving. He tried to get authorities to address the problem but instead he is now left essentially homeless after the fire damaged his own apartment. ##weho ♬ original sound – WEHOonline

MICHAEL: We called the WeHo non-emergency police several times to report, because there have been folks living in the abandoned carriage house for weeks.

There’s a lot of fighting, yelling, and people banging like they’re hammering, which I assume is them trying to open up the boarded-up windows and doors. It’s at all hours, so we would call when we’re woken up at night. Our unit is the furthest back, closest to the abandoned carriage house. We’d be sleeping and be woken up by them. So, we called several times to ask if they could come and check it out.

The Sheriff’s Office, two or three times that we called, came out and evacuated folks. They never arrested anybody. They would say, ‘If you don’t leave now, we’re going to arrest you.’ So, they gave them a warning and had everybody leave. No arrests were made, which I’m fine with, but the problem was that people kept coming back. They didn’t do anything to stop them from returning.

BRANDON: How soon would they come back?

MICHAEL: Either later that night or the next day. It’s hard to tell if it was the same people or different ones coming back. There was also the issue of the property being very overgrown. I think part of the reason our building got fire damage was that the trees in that area were overgrown into our window and side of the building, so the fire probably carried over from the overgrowth as well.

BRANDON: Did you guys have to evacuate the building when it was going on?

MICHAEL: Just our unit. There was fire damage to our bedroom. They had to break through the wall and the roof. Oddly enough, we weren’t there when the fire broke out. We were at a family member’s house for dinner. One of the other guests at the dinner saw on the Citizens app that there was a fire. When we looked at it closer, we realized it was right by our house. So, we drove back to our apartment and found out that it was our unit that was affected. When we went in, the apartment was covered in smoke. The unit is currently not inhabitable.

BRANDON: Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I had no idea it affected the building so badly.

MICHAEL: Yeah, so the fire department came through our unit because the fire had gotten into the walls of our building. They had to go both on the roof and in our unit, and then outside, trying to contain the fire to our building.

BRANDON:  Were you guys freaking out?

MICHAEL: I mean, yes and no. Thankfully, it could have been so much worse. The major issue for us is really about smoke damage. All of our stuff smells of smoke, and some of our property got coated in soot and water. But I was just grateful that nobody was hurt. That’s the most important part.

MICHAEL:Do you remember the date that you called the sheriff?

MICHAEL: I could look back into my call log, but it’s upwards of two to three weeks ago, and it’s been frequent, like every couple of nights for the last few weeks. Me and my partner have called probably four times over the last three weeks. We’ve also yelled from our window at the people there, trying to get them to leave.

BRANDON: Had you seen anybody lighting fires or anything like that?

MICHAEL: No, but when I was there, I took a peek and took a bunch of photos yesterday. There was a candle on the floor of the burnt-out building, signs of drug use, lighters, and it was also clear that people were living in there as well. There were personal items, dog food, and human feces. It was evident that people were living there..

BRANDON: Oh God. And do you know how long the home had been vacant?

MICHAEL: We’ve lived in the building for just over a year, and it’s been abandoned the entire time.

BRANDON: Has there been any other kind of activity, like say the developer coming by or anybody cutting the lawn?

MICHAEL: Nothing, no.

BRANDON: No code enforcement, no fire department?

MICHAEL: No.

BRANDON: Wow. I mean, it’s insane. The negligence is just unreal.

MICHAEL: Not to say they didn’t, I just have never seen it. We’re really lucky because we have family members that live nearby, so we’re able to stay with them currently. But we can’t live in our building, in our unit. Financially, I have no ability to stay in a hotel.

BRANDON: Are they going to provide you with something?

MICHAEL: Well, fascinatingly enough, our property manager has not contacted us. We had to contact them. We talked to the office manager yesterday, but they have not contacted anyone in the building. They were aware of the fire but thought it happened next door. Our building manager has not done anything about it at all, nor reached out to us.

BRANDON: Let me do this. I’ll send a text over to Lauren Meister, one of the council members. I know they have to do something, they have to help you. Let me see if she knows what can be done. I’ll put you all in touch and see if she can help you out.