Sign Feud May End in 'For Sale'

One by one, her beloved plants started to die.

First, a cherry tree. Then some petunias. A rose bush. Her tomato plants. A raspberry guava.

Catherine Sara Cass suspected that her garden was being poisoned by the couple next door. So she planted protest signs in her frontyard, spicing them up with her own brand of sarcasm: "Milosevic lives next door" -- a reference to the former Yugoslav president now charged with genocide.

Jim Wallace and his wife were not amused, but they let things slide. Finally, after years of putting up with the signs, they asked Cass to please stop, or, they warned, they would sue.

And that's what happened.

Now Cass, 78, stands to lose the home she has lived in since 1961.

An Orange County judge recently agreed that Cass is a nuisance and has defamed the Wallaces and another neighbor. She was ordered to pay them $320,000 in damages. And neighbors now are fighting for the right to sell Cass' property -- her only asset -- to collect their award.

The drawn-out dispute has divided the Santa Ana neighborhood known as Park Santiago. Some say Cass is a harmless, reclusive woman whose right to free speech and feelings are being trampled.

Others say Cass had it coming.

Cass, to no one's surprise, is digging in her heels. She is appealing the decision, has filed a complaint against the judge, and said she plans to sue her neighbors for elder abuse. She also has put up a new sign: "We have no holiday. They had the sheriff put a levy on our family home of 44 years."

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The tree-lined streets of Park Santiago provide a refuge from the nearby freeway and railroad tracks that frame the neighborhood. Residents say it's not necessarily a tightknit community, but certainly a friendly place.

Cass was raising two teenagers on her own when she bought her modest ranch-style home on Fairmont Avenue for $18,000. She worked at engineering labs and city parks to pay the mortgage, filing for bankruptcy at one point to hang onto her home.

"Looking back, she really had to scrape by," said her son David, 55. "But ... she was always able to keep the wolf from the door."

He and his sister had moved away by the time Jim Wallace and his wife moved in. They bought a two-story home, restored it and raised two daughters.