Owners of problem San Francisco house used to own ‘horrific’ property in Santa Rosa

It’s a comfortable, tidy block in the Richmond District of San Francisco, a mix of owned and rented homes and apartments just a block away from the tony Seacliff neighborhood. But one property stands out.

“It’s a creepy, scary-looking place,” said a woman who lives just down the block; she asked to remain anonymous because she finds the residence and its inhabitants threatening. “There is trash and garbage and exposed wires, toxic substances out there. It looks like a haunted house. It’s a decrepit, derelict-looking place, with people coming and going.”

Her complaints about 310/312 30th Avenue, a two-unit, post-1906-earthquake structure, would likely be of no concern an hour north in Santa Rosa, were it not for the owners of the property, and one of the people who inhabit it.

The building belongs to Osman and John Vincent, whose former house on Richmond Drive, just north of Santa Rosa Junior College, was a chaotic blight that vexed neighbors for decades before the city condemned it in 2017.

John Vincent was the primary occupant there before the city of Santa Rosa kicked him out. Now he’s living in San Francisco.

Subject of complaints

His address has been the subject of at least seven complaints to the city/county’s Department of Building Inspection over the past two years. It also has received at least two requests for service from San Francisco Public Works in recent months, both of which were initiated by the woman who lives down the block.

“What could I say? I wish them luck in finding a solution to it,” said Kevin Holt, who lived across the street from John Vincent in Santa Rosa. “It certainly took us a long time.”

Decades, in fact.

The time frame of neighbors’ disputes with the Vincents on Richmond Drive, and the scope of the squalor there, were staggering.

Santa Rosa city records detailing problems at the house date to 1986. The first Press Democrat article on the conflict surrounding the Vincent home was published in 1995; the last went to press in 2017, after John Vincent had finally moved out and the residence was red-tagged.

Along the way, neighbors complained of human waste in their yards, people passed out on lawns, late-night fights and break-ins.

“The conditions inside 550 Richmond Drive are horrific,” a Press Democrat reporter wrote in 2017. “The home smells of human waste. Cartons of rotting food sat atop mounds of clothing, shoes and junk in the rooms. Black paint was smeared over the windows in one bedroom.”

That wasn’t the final word. Nine days later, The Press Democrat reported that a cleanup worker found an explosive drugmaking device while clearing the Vincent house, forcing street closures and a bomb squad response. In that story, Santa Rosa fire inspector Tom Walker said the stuff piled up in the back yard was the worst collection of residential garbage he’d seen in 18 years on the job. It took a crew 21 hours to fill a pair of 30-yard dumpsters.

‘Eyesore in the neighborhood’

The situation on 30th Avenue in San Francisco hasn’t reached those proportions. Records obtained from the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management show seven calls for service in the past three years. One of those was for a reported assault and another was to check on a resident’s well being. Most were minor infractions like parking violations.

But many of the old Santa Rosa laments are being echoed.

“It’s the eyesore in the neighborhood,” said a man who lives on the other side of 30th Avenue. “We walk around the neighborhood a lot. I can’t think of anything like this down to Fourth Avenue, or out to the beach.”

He also asked for anonymity, hoping to keep the peace if he and the residents of 310/312 should be living in proximity for a while.

When a reporter visited the Vincent home Tuesday, he didn’t even have to knock on the door. There was John Vincent, 79, out front with his little dog, Jake.

As in previous interactions with reporters, Vincent was affable, kind and open to all questions. He seemed tickled to learn a Santa Rosa reporter was visiting, even under less-than-ideal circumstances.

Vincent was quite lucid in framing his current circumstances, and in recalling events long past. But he went on extended tangents about past loves, vivid dreams and his several books-in-progress. He was disheveled, with untrimmed nails and dirty clothes.

There was detritus out front, including several large sheets of granite, but none of it blocked the sidewalk. Vincent said a city/county worker had showed up the previous week, and had directed him to haul away some of the junk. The property looks better now than it did at the time of that visit, Vincent said.

House a cluttered mess

He invited the reporter inside. The interior scene justified neighbors’ concerns. The downstairs unit was a mass of clutter, hallways and rooms packed with bicycles, power tools, skateboards, books, boxes, open cans of dog food and leftover people food. Much of the plaster had been removed from the walls, exposing bare beams and wiring.

“I’m aiming for one life, and I keep being taken on a different one,” Vincent said, acknowledging the mess around him.

He explained that after living in an RV for a while following his eviction in Santa Rosa, he moved to 310 30th Ave., which was part of his parents’ estate. His brother, Osman, who is 82, has long handled the family’s money, John Vincent said, but has fallen behind on property taxes at the San Francisco house and now owes $33,000.

The Press Democrat was unable to reach Osman Vincent. His brother said “Oz” had recently been incapacitated by a severe reaction to a dental medication, and was in the process of relocating to Virginia because “he owes the city tons of money on his property” in Berkeley.

John Vincent has no other close relatives. He had been living off the proceeds of selling the Santa Rosa property, he said, before applying for Supplemental Security Income last December. He has been receiving checks from that federal program, but the Social Security Administration is attempting to reduce those payments.

“Regrettably for the past 50 years my life had been plagued by chronic fatigue syndrome making everything including surviving way way way harder,” Vincent wrote to the SSA, in a letter he shared with The Press Democrat.

Vincent said a longtime acquaintance, Bill Head, lives with him at 310 30th Ave. and has helped with mortgage payments and repairs. It is Head’s detritus out front, Vincent asserted.

The Vincents had a tenant in the upstairs apartment, 312 30th Ave., John added. But the person moved out two years ago without vacating their rights, depriving him of $2,000 a month.

Neighbors fed up

The neighbor down the block conceded that Vincent might be a harmless old man. But she insists his property is a nuisance, and she believes the City/County of San Francisco isn’t doing enough to improve the situation.

“The city is not addressing this problem adequately, if at all, and the neighbors, including us, are at wit's end with how to clean up this situation — literally!” she said. “Our quality of life is being impacted here with toxic smells, insects surrounding the property and bleeding over into some of the neighbors’ homes, sights of garbage, etc.”

It isn’t just the unsightly clutter driving neighbors’ angst. It’s the foot traffic, which they describe as a fairly regular stream of down-and-out visitors and, they believe, squatters.

“What concerns me more are the people that come in and out,” said a woman across the street. “There’s so much transient foot traffic. I saw someone coming in front of our house, this completely checked-out person, and he disappeared inside the house.”

To John Peter, it’s another sad chapter in a story he has watched unfold for decades. Peter grew up on Richmond Drive in Santa Rosa, and still lives in the house where he was raised. He has known the Vincent brothers since childhood. He thought of them as “damn near geniuses” when he was a kid. He knew their parents, too.

Peter was as appalled as anyone at the conditions John Vincent lived in when they were neighbors, but holds no grudge against him.

“He’s essentially harmless,” he said. “People took advantage of him. He let people stay there. He lets people do whatever they want.”

Peter wishes the 30th Avenue residents luck and encourages them to keep making calls to city officials. But he believes they’re in for a long fight.

“It’s gonna be hard to get him out of there,” he said. “Look at how long it took in Santa Rosa. I knew the mayor, I knew the chief of police. There was nothing they could do. What do you charge him with?”

Richmond Drive now

At the same time, Peter offers an optimistic vision of the future. He pointed to 550 Richmond Drive and its current state. A contractor bought the property a few years ago, fixed it up and resold it in March. It’s lovely.

“A new couple moved in,” Peter said. “They’re great neighbors. You have kids running down the street, riding their bikes. It’s nice to see in an older neighborhood.”

That’s small consolation to the woman who currently lives down the block from John Vincent. She has seen the Press Democrat stories about the Vincents’ house in Santa Rosa, and vows not to let to let the situation in San Francisco fester for so long.

“Now that I’ve found this is history repeating, I’m dead set on making something happen,” she said.

What might become of John Vincent if he were to get kicked out of this final landing place is unclear.

You can reach Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @Skinny_Post.