FANNING DISCONTENT : TUJUNGA MAN GUILTY OF BEING PUBLIC NUISANCE.

Byline: Terri Hardy Daily News Staff Writer

Ludovit Salka has screamed at his neighbors for almost 30 years.

Standing inside his fenced property in Tujunga, Salka's booming voice has invaded his neighbors' trim hillside homes, broken up family gatherings and disturbed sleep - even a quarter-mile away on Tranquil Drive.

James Tanker has heard the ``diatribes'' for years, and in subdued testimony this week, Salka's neighbor said the screaming never fails to tie his stomach into knots.

``You are murdering me,'' Salka bellowed at Tanker one day last March. ``Call the police

Call 911

''

``Over nine years, it wears you down,'' Tanker said.

Hundreds of visits by the police have not quieted Salka, a 77-year-old Czechoslovakian immigrant who is convinced that the entire neighborhood is involved in an elaborate drug manufacturing ring.

Salka has staked out their homes, snapping photos and taking down license plate numbers. He has hired professional ``sniffers'' for $10 an hour to record tell-tale chemical smells from the illicit drug making.

On Thursday the neighbors got even.

Relying largely on the testimony of a half-dozen neighbors, a San Fernando Municipal Court jury found Salka guilty of 19 misdemeanor counts of disturbing the peace and public nuisance for several instances recorded in 1995 and 1996.

``He's pretty extraordinary - I've never seen a repeat offender like this,'' Robert Fratianne, the deputy city attorney prosecuting the case, said in an interview.

Showing no emotion, Salka was remanded to custody and taken away to jail where he is being held in lieu of $250,000 bail. Sentencing will be held June 20.

Salka faces jail time, fines or probation, but Fratianne said he will recommend psychiatric counseling.

``It's too bad it had to go this far, but the man wouldn't listen to reason,'' said neighbor Chris Rodriguez. ``It's been going on so long and we need it quiet.''

Representing himself in court, Salka found it difficult to present a defense. Municipal Court Judge John C. Gunn warned him not to bring up the ``D word'' - drugs - after finding no evidence that any illegal narcotics activity was happening on Estepa Drive.

Sighing heavily, Salka seemed a pitiful figure confounded by the system.

In an interview Wednesday, the former real-estate agent and mechanical engineer spoke vehemently about his attempts to wage a one-man war.

``I can't ask the questions I want to,'' Salka said. ``Of course everyone is saying, `No, we are not doing anything.' But the evidence is there - the trees are dying, the birds are gone, and the fumes are making me and my wife sick.''

Prosecutors and police say that Salka is not crazy - having been found competent in previous court cases - and except for this one issue, he is lucid.

``He's not insane. He's just absolutely convinced that his neighbors are manufacturing drugs and the police are trying to cover it up,'' said Lt. Robert Warren, who heads the narcotics unit at the LAPD's San Fernando Valley bureau.

Police said Salka has been arrested several times over the past two decades, and his neighbors have gotten at least two restraining orders against him.

In 1990 Salka's record 582 calls to 911 in one month got him barred from using the system to report drug activity - the first person ever in Los Angeles County.

``He has wasted thousands of taxpayers dollars in unnecessary police investigations,'' Warren said. ``He's created absolute misery for the neighborhood.''

Estepa Drive is tucked away in a hilly neighborhood of middle-class homes with a stunning view of the Angeles National Forest. On one recent afternoon, the quiet is punctuated with bird song. Jasmine is the only scent wafting through the streets.

But Salka and his wife, Kristina, say they have pinpointed 15 different chemical smells coming from drug manufacturing. Large fans placed on their property help only marginally to fight back the fumes, he said.

At night Salka escapes the odors by sleeping in his van at various parking lots in the area.

During restless nights, he said, he thinks about his only son, who got involved with drugs soon after the family built their home in 1967.

``We built the house and it was beautiful, all the birds were singing and everyone was happy,'' Salka recalled. ``Then this neighborhood drew my son into drugs. He took drugs and delivered drugs. Now we have no contact with him.''

Haunted from the memories and weary from fighting the fumes, Salka said he confronts his neighbors.

All of them.

Housewives. A TV producer. A legal assistant. An ailing elderly woman.

``I don't make it easy for them,'' he said proudly.

Neighbor Baria Rodriguez testified that every week since her family moved into their home in 1984, Salka has screamed at her from his property - his voice carrying the block and a half into her home.

``It happens at all times, at 1 a.m., at noon, at 3 a.m.,'' she testified in a shaking voice. ``It's totally curtailed all our family get-togethers . . . it wakes us up . . . it's devalued our property.''

By law, families must disclose Salka when they try to sell their homes.

Tanker, who lives next to Salka on a cul-de-sac in the 7200 block, read in his escrow papers that ``man on the hill yells,'' but dismissed the warning, he said in an interview.

But after being the brunt of more than 500 shouting attacks, Tanker said he's seriously concerned about the effect it's having on his two young sons.

``Our 3-year-old says, `Man angry. Man get me,' and we have to put him in our bed,'' the television producer testified. ``He thinks Mr. Salka will come in through the window.''

Neither prosecutors, police nor neighbors are overly optimistic that the conviction will curtail Salka's shouting.

``Unless he gets a heavy sentence he's going to do the same thing over and over,'' neighbor Chris Rodriguez said.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

PHOTO (color) Convinced that his neighbors are making drugs , Ludovit Salka of Tujunga erected a fan in his yard to blow away fumes.

David Sprague/Daily News