Palisades Rathouse: Unchallenged by Health Officials, Elderly Twins Fed Local Vermin Population

And the Alphabets — the original Palisades — has older, relatively more affordable homes on cozy lots along narrow streets. It’s also walking distance from the town center, “the Village.”

The distinct Palisades neighborhoods are unified by a strong theme that agents peddle and residents embrace: normalcy. A small diner in the Village renamed itself Mayberry last year, and residents fondly think of the town as Mayberry by the Sea. There’s only one full-time LAPD squad car assigned, and people boast that they recognize one another on the street.

Max Taves

Palisades kids avoided 1018 Fiske and its rotting front door at Halloween.

In desperation, the Denhams posted this grainy YouTube video of Rathouse.

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But normal it’s not. The average income is more than $200,000 per household, putting the Palisades in the top 0.001 percent of American zip codes in terms of wealth. Its community council refuses to join the City of Los Angeles Neighborhood Council system because its members don’t like the financial-disclosure requirements — or the granting of voting rights to outsiders under the city’s broad definition of “stakeholders,” which includes nonresidents, like shop clerks.

A sun-bleached shirt hanging in the window of the local chamber of commerce sums up residents’ self-satisfaction. It reads: “If you’re rich, you live in Beverly Hills; if you’re famous, you live in Malibu; and if you’re lucky, you live in Pacific Palisades.”

Scott and Liz Denham haven’t bought their shirts yet. Last year, when they were expecting the birth of their daughter, Sage, and searching for a home, they settled on the Palisades. Scott visited every property on the Palisades market for nine months, until a Tuesday morning almost exactly a year ago, when he saw the house at 1014 Fiske Street.

 

(Click to enlarge)

In desperation, the Denhams posted this grainy YouTube video of Rathouse.

Ted Soqui

(Click to enlarge)

“Whoa! That’s something a person doesn’t forget.” —Rat Busters' Louis Rico

The two-story 2,000-square-foot home was perfect. Scott works as an urban planner for CIM Group, a huge development firm, and Liz works part-time for a TV station. Former New Yorkers, Scott surfs and Liz is athletic and unpretentious. The New England–feel “country antique” house of dark-wood floors was only part of the attraction. Fiske is one of the “Alphabet streets,” and that means “you can walk to all these stores and restaurants,” Scott said recently, sitting in the Santa Monica office of his lawyer, Barak Lurie.

“It’s 100 percent centered on family. It’s a neighborhood where there are kids on every block. For us, it was an ideal place.”

Each Alphabet street is named, in alphabetical order, for Methodist bishops, and was first settled in the 1920s. Mostly built in the ’40s and ’50s, these staid homes go for over $1 million, even a 900-square-foot bungalow. You can walk from them to a couple of public and private schools for overachievers and more than a few churches. You might run into Jamie Lee Curtis, Jennifer Garner, Ben Affleck, Steven Spielberg or dozens of other A-listers who live in more exclusive areas but shop at Gelson’s and boutiques nearby.

Scott and Liz saw the house on Fiske Street about eight times before they closed escrow, sometimes visiting it with inspectors. Says Scott, sitting next to his lawyer, “It looked like any other neighborhood on the Alphabet streets.” His lawyer, Lurie, adds, “That’s the whole problem with a failure to disclose.”

The seller, whom Denham is also now suing, was actress Natalie Garner, who lived there for about two years before listing it through Sotheby’s International Realty. Garner, an attractive brunette with three IMDB credits to her name — she was in Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo— was never around when Scott and Liz visited. But her dog was. The dog was kept in the hedge-bordered driveway between Garner’s home and the neighbors’, and the driveway and hedge reeked of what Scott thought at the time was particularly strong-smelling dog urine.

After plunking down $1.8 million, the Denhams moved into 1014 Fiske on Friday, October 12, last year. He, Liz and the movers worked fast against the encroaching dark, and the next morning, Scott started sorting through boxes in his backyard.

“I’m standing out there with my 4-year-old son, and there’s this giant rat standing about four feet away from us,” he recalls. “Just looking at us in broad daylight, as if it were a pet.”

Scott had dealt with rats during a job he had in New York inspecting apartment units. But the Palisades rat was somehow different. It showed a lack of fear that gave Scott the willies. Then, another rat appeared. It seemed far too much at ease, slowly making its way through some boxes in the garage. Scott “kind of climbed up on the boxes — off the ground — and sort of watched this thing just nonchalantly walk around inside my garage and onto my yard.”

When told, Liz didn’t believe him, saying, “I’m sure it was a squirrel or something.” But later that day, several friends stopped by to see the new place, and one of them reported that, just outside, she’d spotted a big rat.

A little later, when the Denhams’ real estate agent, Elizabeth Stein, and her husband, Jim, came over, Jim immediately spotted two rats crawling through the grass. He announced: “You guys have a major problem.” On the Steins’ recommendation, they promptly called an exterminator, Rat Busters, which couldn’t come until Tuesday.