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These home movies go too far.
Neighbors say a Chelsea woman is using her townhouse as a full-fledged filming studio — turning a quaint, historic block into a Hollywood horror show of noisy trucks and blazing lights.
Betsy Morgan’s five-story, $6 million pad on West 21st Street has been a backdrop for Banana Republic shoots, “Saturday Night Live” and “Louie,” and countless magazine and advertising photos, locals say.
But the industry’s love of her digs, and other homes in Chelsea, is igniting nasty battles between neighbors.
“It’s not a neighborly thing to be doing,” said Steve Shore, who lives down the street. “We’re not supposed to have trailers and trucks and mobs of people on a residential street.”
Since 2009, residents say they’ve been desperate to wrap the incoming attractions. They’ve dialed 311, called police and written to city agencies.
They even made a YouTube slideshow documenting double-parked trucks, workers unloading equipment and furniture, and catering tents on the sidewalk.
The Council of Chelsea Block Associations issued a report this summer with photos documenting Morgan’s home being used as a commercial studio a dozen times this year.
Morgan, an interior designer, says what she’s doing is minimally disruptive and “completely legal.”
She is being “targeted by a small handful of neighbors,” she said.
“It’s very upsetting.”
Morgan’s home is on several location-scouting Web sites, one of which lists a rate of $850 per day.
She has gushed about her 1885 townhouse in Australia’s Vogue Living, saying she has “a little business” opening her home to fashion shoots.
Neighbors contend much of the shooting is done without permits. City permits are required for any filming if vehicles or equipment, excluding hand-held devices, are used.
The Mayor’s Film Office says it has issued only two permits for Morgan’s pad since October 2011, both for still photography.
Neighbors hope to use zoning laws to fight the city’s filming free-for-all, citing a rule that no more than 500 square feet of a residence can be used for commercial activity.
They’ve filed eight complaints with the Buildings Department this year for illegal commercial activity at the pad. Half weren’t inspected until days or weeks later. The city says it found no evidence of commercial activity.
Nick Fritsch, of the preservation group Save Chelsea, said residents aren’t against all filming — just the aggressive hawking of historic homes for noisy productions.
“When individual homeowners advertise and network their homes as prime locations for shooting commercials, promotional and fashion shoots, on a 24/7 basis . . . residents start to look for redress,” he said.