Susy Carranza Tina Vecchi HomeSmart Temecula Valley BEWARE Temecula California

On 9/25/2016, my business partner and I held an open house for one of our clients listings, just like we've done 2 other times before, with no problem from any of the neighbors. Other agents have held open house on this isting and have had no problem.  I arrived at the listing first and started to open, turn lights on, etc...I noticed the complainant, Karen Logan, approaching the house with 2 of our open house signs in one hand, I tried to take them from her hand, as they were my signs, but she threw them.  I asked her why she took these down and she said they were blocking the sidewalk. I told her that couldn't be; I always make sure not to block anything.  She then walked away muttering without giving me a chance to ask her anything else.  

My business partner, Susy, arrived a few minutes later. On her way to the open house, she noticed all my signs were lying on the ground, on the main road. These signs had been placed on common area grass.  The signs on the residential streets wee also down.  Susy proceeded to to put the signs upright again. She asked me if I knew why the signs were down. I said I didn't, I only knew about the 2 signs the complainant threw on the yard earlier.  Susy walked over to the complainant, who was sweeping the front of her home, to ask her why she took the signs down.  She just said that "she didn't want her neighborhood cluttered with signs and she didn't care about any open house and we had no right to put up signs".  Susy tried to explain to her that we always hold open houses for our selling clients. Ms. Logan wouldn't listen to anything and raised her broom in a menacing manner towards Susy as if she was going to strike her. At that point Susy walked away and told Ms. Logan, she was going to call the police. The police, who were called by Susy, arrived a few minutes later and we explained to the Officer exactly what had transpired. The officer walked over to speak with the complainant. After a few minutes, the Officer returned to us and said he got things cleared up with her. He then suggested we go back and double check our signage to makes sure there was no obstructions. We did go back about half hour after the Officer left and found the signs down again. Susy put every sign up again, and came back to the open house. When we decided to close for the day, we started to pick up our signs, but we couldn't see them. All the signs were down for the 3rd time. Some were thrown onto the main road and had been run over by cars. The flag poles were in the street as well, all broken. We had posted the signs on the common area of the entrance to the residential street - not the sidewalks - and found the signs thrown further into the bushes all mangled.  The complainant took down our signs even after the Police Officer left. She also took down a couple other signs that belonged to another agent and a new home builder

For the record, the Officer never advised us to not hold the open house. If we were breaking any laws I'm pretty sure the Officer would have told us to stop or shut down.  There is no city permit required to hold an open house.

As real estate agents we make it a point to ask the homeowner for permission to put our directional signs in front of their home, especially if we need to put part of our sign on their lawn.  So far, Susy and I have never had any complaints or problems and homeowners are always very gracious, and allow us to do so.

• Complainant says signs were placed in the center of the sidewalk - That is totally untrue.  In the residential streets, we placed our signs furtherst to the grass area so that part of the "A" frame sign was on the grass and cement.  Signs on main roads are placed on common areas not sidewalks.

• Complainant says she almost tripped over the signs. - This too is untrue, unless she specifically was walking right by the hairline of the grass/cement and wasn't paying attention to where she was going.

• Complainant also states that Susy Carranza came to the street to argue with her about the signs she gave back to us and that she was explainigng things calmly - 

Again, not true.  Shw waas angry and unreasonable because she didn't want the signs in her neighborhood.  In the almost 30 years combined experience, we have never experienced this type of situation before.  Both Ms. Carranza and I wee very puzzled by everything, so Ms. Carranza walked over to the complainant (who was sweeping outside), to find out what the problem was and ask her why she took down our open house signs and to explain to her that we were only going to hold open house for 3 hours, but she wouldn't hear anything she had to say and immediately got very belligerent and raised the broom as if she was going to hit Ms. Carranza.  It was only then, when Susy decided it would be best to call the police instead of getting into a confrontation with her.  

The Police Officer arrived and we explained what had transpired and he agreed to go over and speak to Ms. Logan. He returned to us after speaking with her for almost 15 minutes.  The Officer said he had a nice talk with the complainant and explained things to her. He then asked us to go back and double check the signs were not blocking any walkways and to make sure we left enough room for a wheel chair to get thru, and everything would be fine.  A half hour later after the Officer left, we did just that, but unfortunately our signs were down again and some signs and stakes were broken/damaged.  The complainant took down our open house signs 3 times by the time we decided to close up.

Bottom line, we didn't bake any laws nor did we insult, misspeak or disrespect Ms. Logan at any time.  We didn't put any signs in front of her home or nowhere near her home. She lives 3 houses away from our listing on the opposite side of the house, and there's no HOA that prevents us from holding open house.  The only reason we called the police is because we couldn't reason with her and we had to hold this open house, because the seller requested it. 

Now, our reputation has been  tarnished and left with damaged property for doing something every real estate agent has to do as part of making a living and taking care of clients, in real estate.  This is so unfair!