"I admit I have a hard time throwing things away," says Matthews, 58, a former Army infantry sergeant and Vietnam veteran with a bristly Southern accent and direct, steely blue eyes. "I'd like to build a second floor over the garage so that there'd be room for more stuff."
But forget the garage clutter, Matthews says. The real nuisance is just beyond his backyard fence. Climb onto a couple of strategically placed cinder blocks and you'll see it there: Dave's Rooming House, a drab single-family home turned rooming house that has been owned since 1968 by Dave Romeo Lewis, a former business associate of Matthews'. It's the kind of place where rooms are rented by the week or the month, and it's well-known to the cops. Since 1977, police have been summoned to Dave's Rooming House 175 times for everything from assault and narcotics to robbery, stolen vehicles, and, curiously, loose farm animals. And, oh yes, last September, the naked body of a dead tenant, an alleged crack addict, was found sprawled across his bed in a locked room on the second floor.
Welcome to the bane of Matthews' existence.
"It's a cancer in the neighborhood," says Matthews, who for 25 years has been on a jihad to shut it down.
His primary concern is neighborhood pride, he insists, standing amid his beloved car parts and assorted junk. "Besides what it does to the property value, it's a life-safety issue," says Matthews, who lives with his wife, and two daughters, 7 and 9. "This is a family neighborhood, and that ugly, transient hotel subjects us to any drifter or pervert coming down off the turnpike... like the guy who kidnapped that girl in Utah. These scumbags sit in the yard every night, drinking beer and shouting profanities. I've had all kinds of fantasies about sticking a shotgun over the fence and cleaning them all out."
Counters Lewis, who once hired Matthews as a general contractor to build two duplexes: "He's been trying to irritate me for years and trying to close me down. I don't know what his problem is. It's like he's got nothing better to do."
The pair's business relationship has long since degenerated into enmity. After building the duplexes in the 1970s, Matthews bid on a third project but was turned down. "By that time, I'd already tried to close down the rooming house a few times," Matthews grouses. "That's probably why he didn't hire me."
Matthews admits that through the years, Dave's Rooming House has become something of, well, an obsession: He's devoted "hundreds" of painstaking hours to prove that, in addition to being a hazard, the place for years operated illegally, having used trumped-up documentation to get the proper zoning permit. He whips out a wad of business cards from Broward County and City of Fort Lauderdale zoning officials, all of whom he's contacted multiple times ("I know all their extensions and the best hours to reach them," he says. "I know where all the officials' secret little offices are"). He has gone to countless meetings -- anyone willing to listen is treated to a detailed, methodical presentation by Matthews, replete with stacks of photocopied depositions from neighbors and former tenants and affidavits dating back to the '80s.
He's even temporarily set aside his contracting business to better focus on his mission. And he's started to train, swimming three times a week so that physically he'll hold up better, he explains. "I've kind of put my life on hold in order to try and get this straightened out," Matthews says. "You've got to keep on top of these government people. Keep them on their toes."
Problem is, no decision-makers are really listening. Seems that no matter how many calls he makes, appointments he sets, or laps he swims, Matthews can't find an ally. "I know that when I walk into the zoning office, they're probably like, 'Oh, there's that ignorant ass again,'" he says.
Wrong, says Wayne Strawn, a building inspector with Fort Lauderdale's code team. "I've seen the evidence that Mr. Matthews has amassed, and it's very convincing," he says. "When the county administrators issued the nonconforming zoning certificate, they did so based on very thin and flimsy documentation. That's what Mr. Matthews is saying. He's got piles of stuff saying it was granted in error."
Matthews' whole case is based on this "nonconforming zoning certificate," which is a document provided by the county that grants permission to operate a business in an area not specifically zoned for that purpose.
He says Lewis operated his rooming house until 1983 without one, or illegally. "The whole time, I thought this place had been grandfathered in as a rooming house," he says. "Then I learn that the county issued the certificate in 1983 without notifying any of the neighboring property owners... no public hearings, no nothing. I felt like the whole neighborhood had been stabbed in the back by the zoning department. That really ticked me off."
He also says Lewis obtained the certificate with false information provided by relatives in affidavits required by the county's zoning department. "According to county zone guidelines," he says, "criteria can't be based on casual use, which is what that is."
Matthews says the neighborhood could have been rid of the place years ago if only George Maurer, Broward County's code enforcement administrator (then chief zoning inspector), had given him the time of day. "In 1980, I personally handed George Maurer proof," he says. "Well, at the time he muttered something about taking some action. And that was the last I ever heard from him. I doubt he ever even looked at it."
Maurer did not return New Times' phone calls.
As if Matthews didn't have enough on his mind, his neighborhood last September was incorporated into Fort Lauderdale -- rendering any county contacts useless.
"According to the county's zoning department, they no longer have the authority to take this zoning certificate back," he says. "I still think the county should admit it made a mistake and be held accountable."
Meanwhile, the flophouse continues to draw questionable clientele. According to the Broward County Sheriff's Department, from January 1997 to September 2002, it was called out 160 times. Then there were 15 additional visits -- which included two calls concerning wanted persons -- paid by Fort Lauderdale cops once the neighborhood was incorporated into the city. This included a visit by homicide detectives, who discovered the body of tenant Frank J. Fragale. A statement by former resident Brandy Lewis (the owner's daughter) says that Fragale had been asking where he could find crack and that "she had seen him smoking crack shortly after." According to her statement, "he went crazy," "was running around upstairs, sweating profusely and moaning as if he were angry," and was "hunching over the A/C unit to get air." Eventually it was Dave Lewis who showed up, unlocked Fragale's room door, tried to wake him, and found him unresponsive.
"He didn't die from drugs," says Lewis, who now pays off-duty police to provide security. "He was beat up by thieves the week before and had a heart attack. Something like that. I don't really know."
Needless to say, the neighbors are not pleased. "The problem is that crackheads are really unpredictable people," says one resident with a small child, who asked not to be named. "It's just really scary." She says that when she first moved to the neighborhood, she and her husband tried to keep an open mind. "We hired one of the residents to do some work on our house, and we even paid him in advance," she says. "But he got arrested, so the work was never done."
Several months ago, the rooming house was cited by the Fort Lauderdale Fire Department and the city's code team of building inspectors for violations that ranged from too-low ceilings in the upstairs bedrooms to unsafe air conditioner-unit cords that precariously dangled from windows.
While the rooming house was cleared by the fire department, at least 11 building-code violations remain outstanding.
"They have six months to take care of it," inspector Strawn says, "to show us they are going to meet the minimum housing requirements."
Since Dave's Rooming House was cited for the violations, Matthews admits it's been quieter over the fence. Lewis has even planted some flowers to try to make the place look decent.
"They're like born-again Christians over there now," he says. "But as soon as they get out from under public scrutiny, it'll be back to business as usual."
And so, the battle of the boarding house rolls on. "He's so vicious and so determined to give me trouble with that rooming house," Lewis says. "His backyard is full of violations, and I have never turned him in. Maybe he's jealous that I have a rooming house. Or maybe he's mad I never hired him again for more work. Someone told me his life's goal is to close me down."
Indeed, Matthews slogs on. "Well, I'm 58 now. Hopefully I'll live long enough to see that happen."
Both men say they're considering legal action. "If I have to instigate a lawsuit to try to get damages from the county, I will," says Matthews, whose neighbors have taken up a collection for attorney's fees. "There's loss of quality of life, negligence of the county to enforce zoning laws, a loss of property value, endangerment..."
Lewis talks vaguely about a defamation-of-character suit.
And as the war wages, there's an odd sort of civility between the two old enemies. "We see each other driving down the street, and we just wave at each other," Matthews says. "And he always has this stupid grin on his face like he's just pulled something off."
