For nearly four years, Nicaraguan immigrant Claudia Blandon Soto lived in the basement of a Laundromat in San Francisco’s Excelsior neighborhood with about two dozen people — some of whom had called the subterranean space home for as long as a decade.

The cramped, dark and dusty living quarters went undetected by authorities until January, when an inspection revealed what one Fire Department official called a “death trap.” A little more than a month later, the last of the residents had to leave.

That has led to another ordeal for the former tenants, some of them undocumented immigrants and all of them of limited means: Although they no longer live in squalor, they have been forced to find affordable housing in a city with precious little of it.

The basement beneath the Clean Wash Center at 4690 Mission St. was known as 5 Persia Ave., an address that doesn’t exist on any map. It was unknown to city building and fire authorities until firefighters, acting on an anonymous tip, inspected the illegally converted storage space one month after the Ghost Ship fire in Oakland killed 36 people at a converted warehouse Dec. 2.

Soto and 18 other former tenants, many of whom speak little English, are now suing their former landlord for damages after the city determined it was too hazardous for them to remain there.

“No one should be living in this place,” said Idin Kashefipour, their attorney.

Soto, 44, lived in the basement with her husband, Osmar Blandon, 46, and their 22-year-old son, Carlos. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, the steady thrum of washers and dryers droned a few feet above the basement where the tenants ate, bathed and slept.

Back to Gallery Inside the SF Laundromat basement where 2 dozen people lived 4 1 of 4 Photo: Santiago Mejia, The Chronicle 2 of 4 Photo: Santiago Mejia, The Chronicle 3 of 4 Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle 4 of 4 Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle







Fire officials who inspected the basement Jan. 5 found it had been illegally subdivided into 20 units divided by panels of drywall. Each unit measured roughly 150 square feet. A crude bathroom blocked a hallway, exposed wires poked through the walls, and extension cords powered both fans and space heaters. The sole exit was 200 feet from the farthest unit.

Debris from what was once a storage space littered the basement, and tenants said the air was often thick with dust because the ventilation was so poor.

Lt. Jonathan Baxter, a spokesman for the Fire Department, called the basement a “death trap.”

“We determined immediately that there were very egregious fire code violations that were present, that we believed would result in death of occupants if a fire or disaster occurred at that building,” Baxter said.

A little more than a month after the inspection, city officials found that none of the code violations had been fixed. They gave the residents 48 hours to leave.

The former tenants who sued in San Francisco Superior Court named as defendants Ernesto Paredes, who residents say was the basement’s landlord, and Melissa Mendoza. State records show she has owned the building through a business since 2008.

An attorney for Paredes declined to comment, and an attorney for Mendoza did not respond to requests for an interview. Paredes and Mendoza could not be reached.

The suit contends that the residents’ ouster constituted a no-fault eviction under the city’s rent ordinance. That would entitle those who lived at 5 Persia to thousands of dollars, including reimbursement of the rent they paid to Paredes and money for their “severe emotional distress,” according to the suit.

Paredes worked for a church on the second floor, above the Laundromat, the suit said. The Laundromat was using the basement for storage in 2005 when Paredes built the tiny apartment units and made them available for rent, the plaintiffs say.

He allegedly installed plumbing that served four bathrooms, though the smell of sewage would later fill the air when the rudimentary system clogged, Soto said. She and the other tenants were each paying up to $1,000 a month per room.

Paredes “just wanted to collect our money, and then he just wanted to wipe his hands of us,” said Soto, speaking through a Spanish translator.

Soto was living in Nicaragua when her husband moved into 5 Persia around 2012 and began sending money to her. She joined him here in 2013, and the couple were granted permanent U.S. residency after arguing that gang violence in their hometown in Nicaragua made it dangerous for them to return.

In September 2016, she was diagnosed with cancer and eventually lost her left eye to the disease, which is now in remission. Unable to work, Soto was relegated to the basement almost 24 hours a day as her husband came and went, working odd $14-an-hour construction jobs.

“I felt like I was a prisoner,” Soto said. “I couldn’t even look out the window and see if it was raining” — because there were no windows.

The lawsuit claims that Paredes tried to force the tenants to vacate after the January inspection, but that Soto and several others refused, saying they had nowhere to go. In late January, Soto said, Paredes suddenly cut the power, plunging the already dim basement into darkness. Soto needed warm water to clean her sinuses daily because of her cancer treatment, but now the few working faucets flowed only bracing cold. Her food spoiled, and flashlights and candles served as the only illumination.

Even after the power was cut, Soto, her husband and son stayed on until the city forced out the stragglers in mid-February.

Supervisor Ahsha Safai represents the district where the building is located and helped the uprooted tenants try to find new homes. It hasn’t been easy — the basement dwellers were living there because by San Francisco standards, the rents were cheap.

Safai, who has walked by the Laundromat “countless” times over the last 14 years, said he had no idea the basement apartments were there until a resident called his office after the power was cut off.

“I went and Googled the address on Google Maps,” Safai recalled, “and I said, ‘Wait a minute. That’s the Laundromat. Where are these people living?’”

A host of city and nonprofit services were offered to those displaced, said John Coté, a spokesman for the city attorney’s office. City officials also ordered Mendoza to pay relocation benefits of $4,262 per unit. The benefits were paid to those who could prove they lived there.

Still, Safai said, seven former residents of 5 Persia still live at a Salvation Army shelter.

Soto said the inspectors who came to 5 Persia in January referred to the Ghost Ship fire in explaining why the tenants could not stay. After the deadly blaze, San Francisco building and planning officials identified more than 20 properties they deemed at risk in the city and began inspecting them.

Soto said city officials offered to place the family in separate shelters after they were forced from 5 Persia, but they didn’t want to be split up. The couple and their son crashed on the floor at a friend’s, then turned to a hotel.

For eight nights, the couple drained their savings to stay there. Blandon ventured out looking for open houses from sunrise to sunset, but he had little luck. Soto would make calls about vacant apartments, but most landlords spoke only English.

Just as the money was running out, a friend helped the couple land a two-bedroom apartment in Daly City for $2,700 a month. Blandon and the couple’s son, who also does construction work, have been pulling overtime shifts to make the rent.

“That’s the struggle we have trying to stay in the area,” Soto said.

Michael Bodley is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mbodley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @michael_bodley