Red Car Property: Spring Cleaning

 Photo: Diane Edwardson, March 28, 2015.  You know it's spring when the mattresses spring up like weeds around the neighborhood.  (Click on photos to enlarge.)

Photo: Diane Edwardson, March 28, 2015.  Same mattress, opposite angle.  The mattresses & bag of trash are just north of India Street on the Red Car Property.

Red Car Property: Spring Green

Photo: Gary Vlahakis, February 19, 2016.  The not so fondly named "dishwasher tree" is fully green again after a very short winter.

It's sad when you mark the seasons by the dumping photos.  Just a month ago when the dumping was picked up, the same tree had no leaves as it was winter.  It only dropped them mid-December.  The tree's leaves were starting to turn yellow for fall in November, but then we'd had 3" of rain in September.  The dumping accumulated since October.  

Soon it will be spring cleaning time again.

Spring Cleaning: Silver Lake Style

Photo: Diane Edwardson, April 13, 2013.  The Adelbert trail cut-through to the Red Car Property has some new trail markers.  (Click on photos to enlarge.)

Photo: Diane Edwardson, April 13, 2013.  The Gilroy Overlook Lounge on Lot C of the Red Car Property moved to its present location a few weeks ago, along with some wicker furniture and area rugs.  The leather couch is all that remains.

Photo: Diane Edwardson, April 13, 2013.  A month or two ago, ago a Brazilian Pepper Tree in Red Car Canyon was butchered after a branch broke.  Since then, the pile of debris has been growing with other garbage dumped in the canyon. 

NOTE TO LAKE VIEW AVE NEIGHBORS: Look behind your fence!  Paint over the graffiti.  You're not helping the "broken window" effect by ignoring what happens on the other side of your fence.

Photo: Diane Edwardson, April 13, 2013.  Allesandro Way at Earl St.  A couch and mattress have awaited pick up on this part of Allesandro Way for months.  They seem to have migrated to the intersection of Earl St because the City won't pick up just any old mattress & couch without an address, no matter how many times the neighbors call it in. (They wouldn't want to pick up the wrong couch & mattress!)

Photo: Diane Edwardson, April 13, 2013.  A box spring awaits a new home at the corner of Oak Glen & Allesandro Way.  Again, with no address, it may have a long wait.

Photo: Diane Edwardson, April 13, 2013.  One of several Christmas Trees still lining the "sidewalk" on the 2 Freeway side of Allesandro Street - this one is between Walcott & Whitmore. 

Don't dump your trash in our neighborhood - or any other neighborhood. For bulky item pick-up from the City, call 311, use the City's website or the City's new smartphone app. 

Of course, neighbors who routinely call in illegal dumping will tell you the biggest problem is when dumping occurs in areas without street addresses.  Supposedly, this would be resolved with the smartphone app, but neighbors who try reporting illegal dumping that way don't always get it picked up. 

Corralitas Drive: Spring Cleaning

Photo: Diane Edwardson, February 28, 2015.  It's TV season again.  Hmmm, another stripped TV.  (Click on photo to enlarge.)

If you're going to drive here to dump your TV, drive a couple of miles up the 5 Freeway & take it to the City's e-waste center - for FREE.  

LOS ANGELES-GLENDALE TREATMENT PLANT
4600 Colorado Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90039 Hours of Operation:
Saturdays and Sundays
9:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.

Report illegal dumping: http://www.cityofla.org/myla-311/myla-311-service-request

Crap The Homeless Guy Left Behind

Photo: Diane Edwardson, June 30, 2009. Homeless encampment remnants on the Red Car Property meadow. (Click on photo to enlarge.)

For about two years, a homeless guy made his home on the densely overgrown slope above the Red Car Property meadow. For the past year, Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) worked to persuade him to move off the hillside (technically, a part of the Red Car Property) and into supportive housing.

Perhaps it was not LAHSA, but a skunk that finally persuaded this homeless person to leave. Two days prior to this photo, the slope near the encampment had a very strong skunk odor emanating from it. Or, he did some spring cleaning and pushed his trash down the slope. Prior to this incident, he had been extremely well-hidden and tidy.

Now we just have another pile of crap left on the Red Car Property. Why not? The City left piles of crap when they did brush clearance and every day, inconsiderate dog owners literally leave piles of crap all over the Red Car Property.

Corralitas & Rosebud: Spring Cleaning Time

*Updated

Photo: Diane Edwardson, May 16, 2015. The hillside homeowners across the street, always have a heck of a time getting the City to do a bulky item pickup on the weeds in trashbags after they do brush clearance.  (Click on photos to enlarge.)

The first 2 piles of bags have been here for over a month.

Photo: Diane Edwardson,May 16, 2015.  Saturday morning neighbors awoke to a large cabinet dumped in between the trashbags of weeds.  What have we said about "broken windows?"  Dumping begets dumping. 

Photo: Diane Edwardson May 16, 2015.  There were also a couple of small piles of drawers in the tunnel on Rosebud, as if somehow smaller piles of crap would be ok.  

Don't dump your crap in our neighborhood, the Red Car Property or anywhere else for that matter.  Call 311 or go on the City's website and request a bulky item pick up.  Ditto the trash bags full of weeds:
http://lacity.org/myla-311/myla-311-service-request

I know at least one of the three homeowners requested the bulky item pickup twice since his brush clearance was done at the end of April.

*UPDATE 5-22-15: At least 3 more requests to My311LA were made by neighbors between Sunday & Tuesday.  Wednesday, trash day came & went.  Still the bags had not moved.  Although the dry weeds at the corner were picked up. (I suspect a neighbor put those in their green bin.)  Several more online requests were made by multiple neighbors.

I finally sent this blog post to CD13 on Thursday asking for help, since this seems to happen every year. The bulky item trash guys don't see the 30 black trash bags on the side of the road, no matter how accurately the neighbors describe the location.  The bags were picked up the next day.  An hour after the bags and cabinet were picked up, a TV was dumped in their place.  It never ends.

Red Car Canyon: TVs Dumped. Good Neighbor Hauls To Them E-Waste Center

Photo: Diane Edwardson, March 28, 2015, 10:34 AM.  My dog is tired of posing with all the dumped TVs in the neighborhood for scale.  (Click on photos to enlarge.)

After a long period with no new dumping on the Red Car Property, it's spring cleaning time. Here we go again.  

It takes effort to dump here.  Someone had to drive in from either India or Corralitas to dump them. They would not be intact if were launched over anyone's fence, more than 30 feet up the canyon walls.

It takes even more effort to get them picked up, since the property owner won't even pick up the piles of dumping that have been in the canyon or above the viaduct footings since last summer.  The City will not drive onto private property to pick it up. 

After shooting some photos, I texted one to a neighbor on Riverside Place.  He called back (after the joyriding episode) & said he was taking some stuff to the City's E-Waste Center, would the TVs fit in his car?  I thought they might be too big, but let's give it a try.

The Red Car Property owner's rep is always bitching at us when we tell him there's dumping on the property.   He fails to understand, as long as anyone can drive onto the property, dumping is going to continue to happen. He thinks we should be picking it up.  Well, some neighbors do way more than their share.  Here's more proof...

Photo: Diane Edwardson,  March 28, 2015, 11:30 AM. Walking toward Corralitas, I met the neighbor in Red Car Canyon.  It was a tight squeeze, but he got the the first TV in the back pretty easily.

Photo: Diane Edwardson, March 28, 2015, 11:32 AM.  The smaller of the 2 large TVs actually fit in his back seat.  Thank you for being a good neighbor and hauling the crap away.  

March 28, 28, 2015, 11:51 AM.  Less than 20 minutes later,  I received a text from the neighbor.  He'd already dropped off the TVs at the City's S.A.F.E.-Waste Center just off Colorado exit of the 5 Freeway in Glendale.  It's that easy. It's free.  You don't even have to get out of your car.

DON'T DUMP YOUR TVS OR ANYTHING ELSE IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD!

Corralitas Drive: Celebrate The Vernal Equinox With Spring Cleaning

Photos: Gary Vlahakis, March 20, 2014. You'll get a better idea of the amount of dust in the air from the videos posted earlier.  (Click on photos to enlarge.)

In case you missed it, the Vernal Equinox was at 9:57 AM, PDT.

This is the rear view of the same machine seen in the first photo.  While it may appear they're paving at the same time, they're just watering the street in a vain attempt to keep the dust under control while they dig up 2" of asphalt. 

It looks like the previous slurry sealing overflowed onto the curbs. 

One neighbor emailed, "They are grinding away in our cul de sac this morning. The cats are finding it disturbing. They are both on the couch with me, staring at me, looking up to the street, then meowing at me. Apparently, they want me to do something about it."

Neighbors might not want to be parked so close to the edge of their driveways when they start paving.

UPDATE Nesting Raptors: This morning, I got a call from a Dept of Street Services Supervisor at the behest of City Council District 13.  They should be wrapping up work on Corralitas Drive early next week so the City can be out before the eggs hatch.  Noise is the more critical issue with nesting raptors once the babies hatch.