In a city obsessed with tumbling home values and horrible traffic, maybe it's appropriate that the two collided on the Hollywood Freeway.
For 10 days now, a sagging house parked on the freeway's northbound shoulder in the Cahuenga Pass has had people gawking -- and talking.
The old advertising slogan, "If you lived here you'd be home now," has been uttered a thousand times. Radio reports have repeatedly blamed snarled commuter traffic on "that house on the freeway." Internet bloggers have joked about how the house has given new meaning to the term "easy freeway access."
Commuters have noted with disgust that taggers are scrawling fresh graffiti on the home every night.
On Monday, state highway officials gave the owner of the green stucco bungalow until midnight to pick it up and move it. If it wasn't gone by this morning, Caltrans was prepared to hire a mover and bill the job to the homeowner.
That was just the latest bad news for Patrick Richardson, who was trying to save money Sept. 15 by moving the house himself from Santa Monica to the Santa Clarita Valley.
Richardson, 45, of Castaic, obtained a permit from Caltrans to transport the oversize load on the freeway. Instead of taking the shortest route -- up the 405 Freeway and over the Sepulveda Pass -- he took a longer and more level route through downtown L.A. and north on the 101 Freeway.
By the time the 20-foot-wide structure reached the downtown area, wheels were reportedly coming loose from the trailer hauling the house. Richardson made emergency repairs and lumbered onward, only to come to a halt again in Hollywood.
That's where his house struck the 14-foot-10-inch Western Avenue bridge. The impact sheared off the top of the structure's roof. A SigAlert was called when it took hours to free the stuck house. Richardson eventually was able to limp another 3 1/2 miles to Barham Boulevard, where the shoulder beneath the overpass was wide enough for the house to be parked out of traffic lanes.
There the structure has sat, day after day, rush hour after rush hour.
Firefighters at Cahuenga Pass' Fire Station 76 first encountered the house down at Western Avenue. They were astounded when it suddenly came to rest directly in front of their firehouse.
"Every morning it has a new set of writing on it," said Engineer Fred Martinez, referring to taggers' vandalism. "We hear brakes locking up as people slow down to take pictures of it."
