Drivers zoom by roadside debris - a home on the highway

LOS ANGELES -- Motorists traveling Southern California highways are used to seeing all sorts of debris, from mattresses to luggage to clothing. But the ultimate in freeway flotsam has landed along the Hollywood Freeway: a house.

Patrick Richardson's now immobile home was being moved Saturday from Santa Monica to Santa Clarita when several mishaps -- including a roof-shredding blow while attempting to pass beneath an overpass -- slowed its progress and it fell off its trailer.

Richardson, 45, got an oversized load permit from the California Department of Trans­portation. But instead of following the authorized Santa Monica-San Diego-Golden State freeways route, authorities said, he headed through downtown Los Angeles and then onto the Hollywood Freeway.

In the downtown area, the wheels started falling off, California Highway Patrol Officer Jason McCutcheon said, adding, "It was pretty ugly."

Richardson made some repairs and the roadhouse was moving again. But then the roof struck an overpass and he had to pull over in the Cahuenga Pass, which separates Hollywood from the San Fernando Valley.

Authorities towed the house to a roomy freeway shoulder not far from the Hollywood Bowl. It will sit there, surrounded by orange traffic cones, until Richardson gets it safely moved again. In the meantime, vandals have scrawled graffiti all over it.

"It's in bad shape. There is no hard-and-fast rule about how long a house can sit on the side of the freeway," Caltrans spokeswoman Maria Raptis said. "It will stay there until it can be moved safely."