Neighbors, Police Say It Has Helped Thieves Enter Homes Through Roofs
By Allison Klein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
The shiny silver ladder stands two stories tall and is attached to the back of a Logan Circle rowhouse that has become the focus of the neighborhood's escalating drama over crime, private property and personal safety.
To Nathaniel Rabinowitz, the ladder chained to his red brick home in Northwest Washington is his personal property and nobody has the right to touch it. To many neighbors, it is a scourge on the block that should be removed because it has abetted criminals in breaking into homes.
D.C. police and neighbors believe burglars have used the ladder to climb atop a cluster of gentrifying houses on Vermont Avenue and break in through skylights, leaving through the front door with electronics, bicycles and money.
Two homes on Rabinowitz's block have been burglarized this month. They are part of a row of attached houses with connected rooftops. Police are convinced the thieves climbed up Rabinowitz's ladder and entered the homes through the skylights, Lt. Michael Smith said.
"Ain't no other way up there," he said.
Rabinowitz, 60, has owned his home in the 1700 block of Vermont Avenue for 25 years. He said he uses the ladder to climb on his roof and feed birds.
Neighbors say they have repeatedly asked him to take down the ladder since he put it up in 2001 and locked it to the back of his house. But Rabinowitz believes it is his right to keep his ladder up, even permanently.
"It's on my land. There's no law against having a ladder," he said this week.
The situation heated up June 2 when Christine Dodd's home was broken into. Her camera, laptop, bike and credit cards were stolen. Dodd, 35, who lives alone, became fearful for her safety and has been staying with friends and family to avoid returning home.
"I want to sell it," Dodd said of the house she bought six months ago. The conflict over the ladder has eroded her comfort. "My fear is as long as I live there, I'm going to be in danger."
The day of Dodd's burglary, police used Rabinowitz's ladder to get on Dodd's roof and investigate how the burglar gained entry. While they were up on the roof, they said, they noticed marijuana plants growing, visible through Rabinowitz's skylight.
They arrested him and charged him with possession of marijuana. He was released from jail the following day.
"My marijuana use is religious and medicinal," Rabinowitz said this week.
Rabinowitz said he believes there were no burglaries. He said he thinks his neighbors and authorities fabricated the burglaries because they wanted him arrested for his marijuana. "These people are part of a plot," he said.
According to police statistics, burglaries are common in Logan Circle, with 16 of them in the past 60 days in the vicinity of Rabinowitz's house.
Two weeks after Dodd's house was burglarized and Rabinowitz was arrested, the house adjacent to Rabinowitz's was burglarized. The thieves entered through a skylight and stole a laptop computer, a camera, a cell phone and cash, police said.
Homeowner Frank Mobilio said the whole situation has him on edge.
"I haven't been able to sleep at night," Mobilio said. "I'm incredibly tense over this."
After the break-ins, several neighbors wrote letters to Rabinowitz asking him to take down his ladder. He rebuffed them.
So they contacted the office of Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) and the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs. They got no satisfactory action.
Then Dodd filed a complaint in D.C. Superior Court, asking for a civil court judge to order Rabinowitz to take down the ladder.
The case is before a judge today, but Dodd said she doubts Rabinowitz will show up in court. Authorities have been unable to serve him a summons ordering him to be there.
Rabinowitz, who has been in his home the past several days, said he has refused to open his front door because he doesn't trust the authorities.
"The minute I open my door, they can grab me," he said.
Rabinowitz is due in court tomorrow on his marijuana charge.
Yesterday afternoon, Smith was sitting in his patrol car behind Rabinowitz's house, typing up a search and seizure warrant for the ladder. He said he would try to get a judge to sign it today on grounds that it is evidence in the burglaries.
If the police can seize it, he said, maybe Rabinowitz won't erect another one.
Dodd and Mobilio said they doubt any judge will sign the warrant allowing police to remove it. They said their saga has been too exhausting and defeating for optimism.
"I really wish this were fiction," Mobilio said. "It's been a living nightmare."
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