On the 600 block of North Martel Avenue within the Fairfax District, tucked between two towering fashionable properties, is a brown, Spanish-style stucco dwelling that has drawn the eye of neighbors due to the three-foot excessive stacks of rubbish baggage 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 wash up the property.
Though the house has once more grow to be an unpleasant scene as a consequence of one other accumulation of muddle, many neighbors are defending the home-owner, calling for sympathy and understanding.
Property data determine the proprietor as Raymond Gaon, who has lived within the two-bedroom dwelling for the reason that Nineteen 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 amassing 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 attempting to report him or his dwelling state of affairs,” 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 method 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 dwelling.
Jaynes mentioned Gaon is a non-public man who obtained a biology diploma in faculty 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 almost 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] suppose it could be a fireplace hazard or pose a threat 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 dwelling, Gaon has additional secluded himself and refused assist, she mentioned.
“Neighbors name within the media to come back right here and disturb this very, very personal individual,” Jaynes mentioned. “He may’ve had a coronary heart assault if he noticed this occurring once more.”
Wilson mentioned that making use of extra stress would probably solely exacerbate the issue.
“Mayor Bass and town got here out to wash up, and I get it, as a result of it may need a odor 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 Instances reached out to Bass’ workplace for remark.
Jaynes has tried to assist Gaon clear the mess by periodically whisking away a number of baggage to be recycled. However for neighbors, she believes the one manner to assist the senior citizen could be to increase a hand of compassion.
“The way in which neighbors can assist is to know … individuals who need to do issues their very own manner,” Jaynes mentioned. “He’s been dwelling a long time his personal manner and getting his personal manner. We have to perceive that.”
