He began repair work next door in February 1995 and eventually gutted the house. But in May 1996, Carlos Smith stopped all activity because Didier's permit did not cover the breadth of construction he had already performed. The work continued anyway. Kenny Merker campaigned for five months to stop the construction; he believed it unsafe -- metal pipes were protruding from the outside walls. Merker made at least ten visits and phone calls to city officials asking them to force Mimy to take action; Didier finally stopped work in September 1996. After having spent what he claims is $25,000, Didier now angrily says that all he has left is a pile of Dade County pine.
He's turned his wrath on his neighbors, challenging them on any and every transgression of the city's building codes he notices -- or thinks he notices. Already he's called Mimy to complain about Merker, who is slowly redoing a one-story house on Didier's block. Earlier this year the association president replaced the home's fuses with circuit breakers. He had obtained a permit, but Didier reported him anyway.
Didier says he believes that Merker and other association members have an agenda: "They want to get rid of the black men and have white men in the neighborhood. If you want to buy my house, okay, I'll put it on the market. But no pressure. I'm not going to give it free."
Lately the appliance seller has taken to prying into the activities of his neighbors Renee and Christian Menzel, who live behind him. They are fixing up their house to rent out and are making repairs to the back-yard cottage. "The other day they were changing windows in the big house," Didier says triumphantly. "I stopped them. I stood on the roof [of his own cottage] to see what they were doing -- and stopped them."
Didier and Merker aren't the only ones informing on their neighbors. The association's monthly newsletter, the Buena Vista News, features a column called "The RAT," or Realistic Awareness of Things. "Why at this stage in the game are we afraid to 'RAT' on our neighbors?" the unnamed columnist asks rhetorically. "Are your neighbors gambling? Are they selling booze or carrying on illegal activities? If they are doing anything like the above, we do not want them in our neighborhood."
his hostile atmosphere helped drive Renee Menzel out of the neighborhood association and will soon drive her out of Buena Vista altogether. She believes that Didier and a crony, former neighbor Bill Ortiz, helped stir the animosity that now exists between Haitians and their American neighbors. And she rejects Didier's analysis that the newcomers want to push out the black Haitians. "Everyone likes to play the race card," she complains, "but they can't play it with me and Christian because I'm black and he's white."
About a year ago Christian Menzel heard the electric bell on his gate ring, but he didn't feel like answering. According to court documents later filed as part of a legal complaint brought by the Menzels, the person ringing the bell was Bill Ortiz, one of the landlords the Menzels and others had been nagging to improve his properties. When no one answered, Ortiz allegedly ripped apart the doorbell, unearthing wires that had been buried in an underground plastic pipe, according to court documents. Renee Menzel said that twice she passed Ortiz while he talked with a group of Haitian neighbors. He would point at her and yell criticisms. So in December 1995 the Menzels obtained an order from a judge forbidding Ortiz any contact with them. Ortiz has since sold his house and moved from the neighborhood.
Now the woman who campaigned to bring new homeowners to Buena Vista is eager to escape it. She and Christian have spent most of the last few weeks fixing up a new house in a different part of Miami. "I want to move to a neighborhood where people care and work hard," Menzel says with weary determination.
"Where the city cares," her husband adds.
"That's the kind of neighborhood I grew up in," Menzel continues.
For realtor Norah Schaefer, the blame lies squarely with the city, which failed to provide basic services, forcing people like the Menzels to work to their breaking point, and undermining Merker's attempts to make Mimy and the NET office accountable for their work. "It's a tragedy to think that the city doesn't back up people who are doing their best to improve the neighborhood," she says. "If Buena Vista doesn't make it, we've lost an enormous part of our history.
