Complaints

The noisy dispute in Cerritos has become a humdinger. John Davis contends that a new electrical transformer behind his home of 33 years produces a constant humming sound that resonates through his house and keeps family members awake at night. But he says complaints to Southern California Edison about the problem have produced a corporate ho-hum. The transformer is enclosed in a 4-foot-wide metal box in the southeast corner of Davis' backyard on an otherwise quiet cul-de-sac called Rusty Fig Circle.

The statement "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you" is considered one of the great lies of our time. But if you've ever had a beef with a contractor, wanted to check the complaint record of the company offering you a cut-rate homeowner insurance policy, wondered how to escalate your problem with the local electric company or couldn't get the installer to come back to take a look at your new but balky furnace, Uncle Sam really is...

Question: We recently returned from a Holland America cruise. Our 14-month-old granddaughter never received a proper-size life vest. At the safety drill, we told the crew. A few days later, we noticed it still was not replaced, and finally on the sixth day we asked again. We never received one. Why wouldn't we receive the proper vest? Len Rothmann Miami Beach Answer: Cruise lines rarely want to endanger passengers. For one thing, it's bad for repeat business. Why Holland America didn't respond -- not to his first, second and third requests and not to a letter that outlined the vest problem -- may have more to do with how information is communicated.

President Obama's appointment of "czars," or policy coordinators, is drawing new fire from lawmakers in both parties. They complain that Obama's naming of the czars circumvents the Senate's role in confirming important nominations to the president's administration. In a letter to the president this week, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and five other Republican lawmakers accused the administration of encroaching on Congress' authority in establishing what they said were too many far-reaching czars.

The question is whether Melahat Uzumcu will have to move from her big house, to the other big house. Uzumcu's 7,000-square-foot house in Palos Verdes Estates sits on a cliff overlooking the ocean, with a view of the South Bay laid out in front of it. There are seven bedrooms, nine bathrooms and floors custom made with wood from Brazil. The bathrooms have granite tile and marble counters. There are three fireplaces and three living rooms. Two life-size statues guard the front door.

When officials at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo scheduled a free lecture by bestselling author Michael Pollan, they envisioned a lively talk about sustainable food, along with Pollan's customary critiques of agribusiness. What they didn't expect was a wave of denunciations from angry farming and ranching alumni who rank Pollan as a force only slightly less damaging to agriculture than the Mediterranean fruit fly. Threatening to pull his donations, the head of one of California's biggest ranching operations succeeded in turning today's planned lecture into a panel discussion involving Pollan, a meat-science expert, and a major grower of organic lettuce.

Question: We are an association with less than 10 units. We have an extraordinarily difficult owner in our midst. The things this person demands have been considered by our association's board and rejected with the support of the rest of the owners. But this owner keeps coming back with the same stuff over and over. We are at a loss as to how to deal with this person. Some of us think this owner's behavior is something we must disclose if we sell our units. All of us would like to find a way to not have to deal with what we perceive as this person's craziness.

Customers buying or servicing cars and cellphones filed the most complaints in 2008, according to the Better Business Bureau. The cellphone industry had 36,710 complaints against it, and new-car dealers came in second, with 27,555 complaints, said bureau spokeswoman Alison Southwick. That was a 9% jump in complaints for both groups, compared with 2007. Third place on the consumer-complaint list went to the banking industry, which received 21,021 complaints in 2008, a 15% increase. Overall, customer complaints to the bureau rose 7% last year to 4 million, Southwick said.

Re "Artist, sponsor face off on nudes," Feb. 10 Liza Simone, executive producer of Phantom Galleries L.A., defends her decision to bar abstract nudes from an art show by saying that "the public went bonkers when Janet Jackson revealed one nipple during a Super Bowl game." In overturning the FCC's fine against CBS for the Super Bowl incident, the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals noted that 85% of the complaints received were "form complaints generated by single-interest groups ... with some individual complaints appearing in the record up to 37 times."

A group of neighbors who said they were "tortured" by booming music and noise from a Barcelona pub may finally get some shut-eye after a court sentenced the pub's owner to more than five years in prison. The court ruled that the owner ignored repeated complaints from neighbors living in apartments above the pub in Las Ramblas. -- times wire reports