Groveland senior says tenants have taken over her home

Hannelore Anderson of Groveland has been trying for months to remove tenants who have taken over her homesite and are not paying rent.

Those squatters, or tenants, were once her friends and reputed caretakers of the home that sits at the ninth green of Pine Mountain Lake golf course.

On Thursday, the 74-year-old was able to regain possession of a Honda Pilot the tenants had refused to return to her, thanks to help from the California Highway Patrol.

Anderson was in her locked bedroom Thursday evening, talking on the phone in muffled tones, because she’s afraid the squatters eavesdrop through the walls.

“If she ever uses my debit card or attacks me again, I will call them and she will be arrested,” Anderson said, speaking of one of the tenants.

Even though the situation sounds like elder abuse and one of the tenants was said to have assaulted Anderson a week ago, the tenants remain on the property. People with experience in these cases don’t understand why.

Anderson said a county adult protection staff member has never come to her home. Laws to protect elders supersede any tenants’ claims to legal protections.

“These people need to get out,” said Joyce Gandelman of the nonprofit Senior Law Project in Modesto, who has assisted numerous seniors who are exploited by tenants. “There is no way it should take 60 days. They should be out right now.”

Gandelman hopes to seek a restraining order in Tuolumne Superior Court next week to have the tenants removed to ensure Anderson is safe.

In Stanislaus County, which is credited with a robust Adult Protective Services, almost 130 restraining orders were issued last year to kick out tenants who had exploited seniors.

In a typical scenario, a vulnerable or lonely senior will take in a single adult (maybe a relative or renter). The new tenant does not pay the agreed-upon rent and soon others who are poor or homeless move in and take advantage of the senior, who may be cognitively impaired. The seniors become victims of theft, emotional or physical abuse, and financial exploitation.

In a 2012 case, a 63-year-old Modesto woman with a disability let a man move into her garage in exchange for doing gardening. Before long, there were five other people in the home and the man never did much yardwork.

“They were terrorizing her,” Gandelman said. “We got restraining orders against all five and kicked them out.”

In a recent case, a 78-year-old man who lives alone gave a room to a grandchild. Another woman, who made a couple of rental payments, moved into the home, followed by another man.

The woman hit the homeowner, sending him to the hospital, and the next night another tenant choked the 78-year-old man, who was able to call police. The Senior Law Project obtained restraining orders to remove the tenants, Gandelman said.

In other cases, seniors agree to buy groceries or other items for their abusers, or enter caregiver relationships in which they provide access to their bank accounts.

“An 85-year-old senior may be as vulnerable as a 5-year-old child,” said Juan Ramirez, manager of Adult Protective Services for Stanislaus. He expects the number of cases will grow with the expanding senior population and cycles of poverty and addiction.

There is no need for seniors, or their family members, to wait for the normal eviction process to oust such tenants from the home, which can take three to six months. They can inquire about restraining orders, or kick-out orders, at the Superior Court’s Self-Help Center, Adult Protective Services or from a private attorney.

There’s a 48-hour window for kick-out orders issued by a judge. Ramirez said using coercion to get free housing from a senior constitutes financial elder abuse.

“We give them a few minutes to get their stuff together and they are escorted off the property,” said Lt. Robert Hunt, who manages the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department’s civil division. “If they come back in violation of the restraining order, our policy is to take them to jail.”

A civil court hearing is set for a few weeks later to hear testimony from the senior and any tenants who claim their rights were violated.

Ramirez said it often takes several incidents before a senior will have a family member removed over problems with addiction or mental illness.

Relationship turned sour

The tenants at Anderson’s home in Groveland are identified as Chenoa Gerber, her unemployed boyfriend Michael Sidenstricker, Gerber’s 13-year-old daughter and a 15-year-old boy. Sidenstricker said they receive food stamps and a small amount of cash aid, and Gerber is owed child support by a prison inmate.

It appears that Anderson met the two homeless adults at a coffee shop in Cameron Park, east of Sacramento, where she owned a home. Margeret Davids, formerly of Cameron Park, said Gerber and her boyfriend tried to take advantage of a friend of hers, and Davids believes they are doing the same to Anderson.

“Chenoa and Michael would sit in the coffee shop waiting for people to come in,” Davids said. “They would brag about this woman with a house and a Mercedes. Eventually they moved to Groveland to live with her and, the next thing you know, Chenoa is driving this SUV and saying, ‘We are taking such good care of her.’ ”

Davids said she saw Gerber driving the Mercedes, and that the couple once brought Anderson over for a visit at her former residence in Cameron Park.

Davids said she heard Gerber say Anderson was going to sign the Groveland house over to them.

Sidenstricker said Friday that Anderson once proposed having them inherit the home, rather than giving it to her two sons. They have no interest in owning the home, he said, and insisted they helped Anderson out of a difficult situation with her sons.

According to Anderson, the original agreement was that Gerber and Sidenstricker would pay $800 a month for room and board, and that they would help her fix up the Groveland home, which has a weathered exterior.

Anderson said the couple never paid her, other than $200 for utilities.

Last year, a group of Sidenstricker’s relatives moved into the two-story guesthouse without Anderson’s consent, she said. There was reveling and the squatters made a mess, said Richard Fries, an 88-year-old neighbor who has tried to help Anderson.

Fries said some of the squatters used the home, which essentially confined Anderson to her bedroom. The 13-year-old girl still uses a bedroom in the home. Anderson goes out to local restaurants every day to eat.

Anderson’s attorney, Paul Bunt, said he filed papers to evict nine people from the guesthouse in November. About this time, Anderson went to Fries’ nearby home to talk with a county Adult Protective Services staff member by phone, but she wanted to wait until after the holidays to take any action against Gerber and Sidenstricker.

It’s clear that Anderson and the foursome were once on good terms. She made payments on the Honda Pilot for the adults to use, but the friendship soured months ago.

Fries said he went through Anderson’s bills and found that Gerber had used the woman’s debit card to order Internet service, cable television and cellular phone service.

Fries and Anderson said they disconnected the services and demanded the couple hand over the keys to the Honda Pilot, which was refused. Anderson decided to stop making payments on the Honda so the finance company would repossess it.

Earlier this month, Anderson said, Gerber struck her on the arm and grabbed her debit card to make the car payment. Gerber countered that Anderson assaulted her.

Anderson, who went to the doctor for a bruise on her wrist, had the finance company reimburse the car payment and filed a stolen vehicle report. On Thursday, a CHP officer waited for Gerber, who was driving a different vehicle, to pick up the teenagers from school and made a traffic stop, demanding the keys to the Honda and whereabouts of Anderson’s Honda Pilot.

Gerber told the officer the Honda was parked under the carport of a vacation home at Pine Mountain resort.

Anderson has assumed she needed to go through the lengthy eviction process to get the tenants out. Because they have been there a year, her attorney has served the tenants with the legally required 60-day eviction notice that allows them to stay at least until June. If they don’t leave then, her attorney said, he will seek an unlawful detainer, giving them five days to respond. If the tenants challenge it, a court hearing would be set within 20 days.

Gerber and Sidenstriker have played the tenants’ rights card, claiming they’ve had agreements with Anderson, including a Sept. 21 note signed by Anderson saying Sidenstricker works around the property in exchange for rent.

“We are trying to leave,” said Gerber, who accuses Anderson of snooping around the guesthouse without their permission.

Sgt. Deborah Moss of the Sheriff’s Department said the agency has received a lot of calls from the landlord and the tenants. Moss said there’s no record of Anderson reporting physical abuse.

“We can only advise them on what their rights are,” Moss said. “We can’t tell the tenants to get out because they have rights, too. We have to rely on the courts.”

Resources are thin

Assistant District Attorney Eric Hovatter went to the home Thursday to talk with Anderson and Fries. Hovatter, who prosecutes criminal elder abuse cases, said resources are thin, and when county officials discussed who was available to visit the site Thursday, he was elected.

“From what you are telling me, there is a classic aspect to this,” Hovatter said the previous day. “People find an old person and take advantage of their goodness and kindness.”

County Supervisor John Gray, who has been aware of Anderson’s troubles, said last week he thought the matter had been resolved.

Gray agreed with Fries that Anderson has wavered at times and opportunities to resolve the problem have been missed. “They are taking advantage of this lady and she has to follow through,” Gray said. “Maybe that is not happening.”

Cori Ashton, deputy director of county social services, said the county has the qualified staff to manage the elder abuse caseload. It usually has one social worker assigned to elder abuse but other staffers are drawn in under a blended staffing approach, she said.

Some responses to complaints are with phone calls and research behind the scenes, said Ashton, who cited confidentiality rules in not commenting on Anderson’s complaint. “Sometimes people are not aware of what’s happening because they don’t see an obvious response like a white horse driving up,” Ashton said. “We help individuals who have these challenges.”

Fries said it was decided that Anderson should stay in the home until things are resolved – out of concern the tenants may cause damage. “I told her if anything looks like it is becoming abusive, she can stay with me,” Fries said.

This story was originally published May 14, 2016 at 7:40 PM with the headline "Groveland senior says tenants have taken over her home."