On the 600 block of North Martel Avenue within the Fairfax District, tucked between two towering trendy properties, is a brown, Spanish-style stucco residence that has drawn the eye of neighbors due to the three-foot excessive stacks of rubbish luggage strewn all through the entrance yard.
This isn’t the primary time the home has been the middle of controversy. Final 12 months, Mayor Karen Bass visited the house and declared it a “public well being emergency,” prompting metropolis crews to scrub up the property.
Though the house has once more turn out to be an unpleasant scene because of one other accumulation of litter, many neighbors are defending the home-owner, calling for sympathy and understanding.
Property data establish the proprietor as Raymond Gaon, who has lived within the two-bedroom residence for the reason that Nineties. Whereas some neighbors have alerted tv crews to report on what many have dubbed the “Trash Home,” others are defending Goan as a misunderstood man who is solely accumulating materials for recycling.
Paul Wilson, a neighbor who lives throughout the road, mentioned neighbors ought to attempt to present extra tolerance towards Goan.
“If he was homeless, no one could be pointing a digicam in his face and making an attempt to report him or his residing scenario,” Wilson mentioned.
A pal of Gaon, Tonya Lee Jaynes, who helps people with hoarding issues, mentioned Gaon is a Vietnam veteran who retains a strict, meticulously ordered recycling routine as a way to make earnings, she mentioned.
“He’s a one-man operation, and that is how he makes his cash,” Jaynes mentioned. “He’s not bothering.”
She added that Gaon, 71, has declined to talk to reporters about his residence.
Jaynes mentioned Gaon is a non-public man who obtained a biology diploma in school and permits the vegetation in his entrance yard to overgrow so he can observe butterflies and different bugs. She pleaded with surrounding neighbors to increase compassion to Gaon, who she mentioned has hassle breaking his routines.
“There must be protocol, there must be mediators, there must be the neighborhoods getting collectively and discovering an answer,” Jaynes mentioned.
Nonetheless, different neighbors, together with Christopher Watson, who lives down the road for practically two years, suggests the yard may represents a well being and fireplace hazard that might endanger the home-owner.
“I observed it once I first moved in, the trash piling up, however a few weeks in the past once I walked by the road, I used to be fairly shocked,” Watson mentioned. “I can perceive how [city officials] assume it could be a hearth hazard or pose a danger to the place.”
The eye drawn to his yard this 12 months and final 12 months had thrown Gaon right into a disaster, Jaynes mentioned. With the media, neighborhood and metropolis’s eyes on his residence, Gaon has additional secluded himself and refused assist, she mentioned.
“Neighbors name within the media to return right here and disturb this very, very personal individual,” Jaynes mentioned. “He might’ve had a coronary heart assault if he noticed this occurring once more.”
Wilson mentioned that making use of extra strain would probably solely exacerbate the issue.
“Mayor Bass and the town got here out to scrub up, and I get it, as a result of it may need a scent or one thing, however there’s no want to show it right into a spectacle or shove the digicam in his face for a neighborhood information story,” Wilson added.
The Occasions reached out to Bass’ workplace for remark.
Jaynes has tried to assist Gaon clear the mess by periodically whisking away a couple of luggage to be recycled. However for neighbors, she believes the one means to assist the senior citizen could be to increase a hand of compassion.
“The best way neighbors will help is to grasp … individuals who must do issues their very own means,” Jaynes mentioned. “He’s been residing a long time his personal means and getting his personal means. We have to perceive that.”
