Man found living in storage locker on Stanley Boulevard Man found living in storage locker on Stanley Boulevard (November 18, 2005)

Three others arrested for using meth at site
by Rebecca Guyon

A 30-year-old man was found living in a locker at Central Self Storage -- with the knowledge of the manager -- and was arrested, along with three other people, for being under the influence of methamphetamine and possession of drug paraphernalia, according to police reports. The arrests were made after the police were tipped off by a local mother who discovered her 16-year-old daughter was hanging out with her friends in a rented storage locker at the site and allegedly using drugs.

Joshua Frucht of Pleasanton was living in the locker located on Stanley Boulevard for an unknown period of time, according to police. When police did a patrol of the site Sunday, Nov. 6, they found four individuals in a locker that was set up like an apartment with a working TV, DVD and VCR stored in an entertainment unit, a bed, artwork hung on the walls and carpeted floors, said Officer Mike Rossillon who made the arrests. Frucht told police that he was paying rent to the facility's manager and was given permission to live there, Rossillon said. Living in a storage unit is a violation of city zoning codes. Code enforcement officers contacted the manager days before the arrests, advising him that people are not allowed to live at the site and he told them there was no one living there, Rossillon said.

Facility manager Jim Cox said he had no comment on the matter. Cox and Central Self Storage, a national storage chain owned by Pegasus Group, will not be charged with any violation and received a warning from code enforcement, said Captain David Spiller.

"We don't condone people living at the property and we're not titled through zoning," said Dwight Davis, general partner of Pegasus Group. "Jim Cox has been with us for a number of years. He knows the codes and I have the utmost confidence in him."

Central Self Storage has more than 10,000 tenants and runs 49 facilities nationwide, including 16 in the Bay Area. While Davis was not aware of any cases of people living in storage units, he speculated that such an incident may be more likely to occur in the Bay Area where housing prices are exceptionally high. Rossillon said this is the first time he has come across an individual living in a storage locker and he does not believe anyone else is currently living at the site.

Andrew Solberg, 22, and Brandi Halstein, 18, both from Pleasanton and Raquel Phillips, 24, of Carmichael also were arrested with Frucht and booked at Santa Rita Jail Sunday, Nov. 6 where they underwent detox before being released. Each has a pending arraignment in early December, Spiller said. No minors were at the storage unit at the time of the arrests, Spiller said.

The police were first made aware of the activity at the facility when a local mother, who asked to remain anonymous, found her runaway daughter at the site on Wednesday, Nov. 2, four days before the arrests. The mother searched for her daughter, a Village High School student who started using methamphetamine this past summer, at Central Self Storage after she discovered photos of her daughter with friends in what appeared to be a storage locker. She identified the storage space in the photos as Central Self Storage when she recognized the facility's blue doors.

The mother said she met Cox for the first time at the storage facility and he recognized her daughter when she showed him the photos. Frucht was also in the photos and identified by Cox, the mother said. Cox took her on a tour of the facility to see if anyone knew her daughter's whereabouts and it was obvious to her that people were living there. She said she heard people watching TV and talking inside the storage units and saw Christmas lights strung around the property.

Before leaving the facility, the mother found her daughter at the site and later that day took her to Thousand Oaks rehab in Oakland where she currently resides. The mother said she informed the police that same day of her suspicions that people were using drugs and living in units at Central Self Storage.

"We're not the police," Davis said. "We don't control what [our tenants] do on or off the premises, but if we suspected drug use, we would call the police." He added that the company does have the right to terminate tenant agreements and would if it discovered a tenant was using drugs in the facility, but is very careful to only do so if it is known for a fact.

In addition to finding the photos, the mother also found journal entries where her daughter described her drug activity and referred to herself and her friends as "the storage crew."

"At the time, I thought it was strange and wondered if it was possible that they could be doing drugs in a storage unit," the mother said. She added that at the rehab clinic, there are several other teens from Pleasanton.

"I think a lot of parents are really in denial about how bad the drug problem is," she said. "They don't think that it's going on where we live."

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