A junk-strewn property near Atascadero under the care of an owner with frequent run-ins with the law is facing a public nuisance complaint from San Luis Obispo County.
Spanning 9 acres, the property on Toro Creek Road is a heavily wooded parcel owned by Thomas Brooks. He inherited it from his grandmother in 2023 when she passed away. But the problems began when Brooks moved onto the property years before.
The parcel accumulated so much excessive storage of vehicles and junk materials over almost a decade that the pile-up protruded into the county’s right of way and interfered with neighbors’ use of the road.
“Neighbors have consistently complained about the condition of the property and its impact on their enjoyment of their property since 2017,” the county’s April 1 complaint said.
Mounting complaints from 2nd District residents compelled the county to examine Brooks’ property in 2022. The code enforcement unit’s investigation into the site and documentation of junk materials in front of the parcel encroaching on the right of way resulted in a notice of violation for Brooks that required him to clean up the property.
But the violations remained unfixed, and Brooks appeared before an independent county hearing officer in 2023 to deliberate the future of his property.
The code enforcement unit’s Resource Protection Specialist Hannah Miller said at the hearing that Code Enforcement Supervisor Cynthia Alm had observed Brooks had regressed in his efforts to clean up the property, which at one point contained six vehicles, one commercial bus, portions of pickup truck beds filled with household items, garbage bags, tools, and a refrigerator.
“During the site inspection from the road [in 2022], Thomas Brooks briskly and aggressively approached Ms. Alm’s moving vehicle with two large wrenches in his right hand,” Miller said at the hearing. “She advised Mr. Brooks through a partially opened passenger window that the county would be in contact regarding progress and county actions. She documented in the file that no additional site inspections without law enforcement should occur.”
Brooks said he disagreed with the county’s assessment of the storage of vehicles on his property. He claimed those vehicles either belonged to people he had sublet the property to or were ones that he repaired and reconstructed.
“I do have a small collection of vehicles, and I had at one point gotten a storage for them … but I lost that storage recently,” he said at the hearing. “A tenant of mine was moving out, who was actually very difficult to remove, and I’ve still been hauling away junk of his. There’s still a trailer here that I’ve not been able to get any sort of licensing or any information on that I don’t know how I’m going to be able to get rid of.”
The county hearing officer concluded that the conditions on Brooks’ property equated to a nuisance as defined by the county code. He ordered Brooks to fix the violations and authorized the county to take over if he failed.
According to the county’s complaint, Brooks didn’t abate the conditions by October 2023 and the county took next steps.
“The county hired a contractor that removed four large trailers full of junk and material in 2023,” Deputy County Counsel Ben Dore told New Times.
Dore added that several neighbors also complained about suspected criminal activity at Brooks’ property.
‘In addition, the county has received complaints that the property owner has started to again accumulate excessive junk and materials on the property. There have also been complaints that other individuals are living on the property in tents and with the remains of burned residence.’
—SLO County complaint for public nuisance
Since 2006, Brooks, 41, has faced a string of felony and misdemeanor charges from the SLO County District Attorney’s Office. Most of the alleged crimes involve possession, transportation, and sale of controlled substances like marijuana and methamphetamine.
In 2023 following the county’s abatement of the violations on his property, Pacific Gas and Electric Company removed the power meter and turned off electricity because unnamed residents had altered the electrical panel and connected directly to the street electrical pole line.
“We don’t know who did it,” Dore said. “According to neighbors, Mr. Brooks has allowed others to live on the property.”
Then in March 2025, a mysterious fire destroyed Brooks’ on-site residence. The county condemned the residence and declared it uninhabitable. Brooks listed the property for sale after trying to clean up the damage caused by the fire and remove junk from the property.
Real estate website Redfin showed that the property was listed in August 2025 for $550,000, but the listing was removed in October 2025.
Dore said the county doesn’t know what caused the fire. According to the county complaint, neighbors complained that Brooks has returned to live on the property.
“In addition, the county has received complaints that the property owner has started to again accumulate excessive junk and materials on the property,” the complaint read. “There have also been complaints that other individuals are living on the property in tents and with the remains of [the] burned residence.”
The county now wants the property under the care of a court-appointed receiver. A case management conference at the SLO Superior Court is scheduled for Aug. 10. ∆
This article appears in Best of SLO County 2026.