A sweeping success!
Residents living next door to a squalid Los Angeles home can finally breathe easy after more than seven tons of stinky trash were removed from property on Thursday.
The residence dubbed ‘trash house’ is located in the affluent Fairfax neighborhood — which boasts a median house price of $3.42 million — and has been the source of dozens of complaints over more than a decade.
Men in white hazmat suits, masks and construction hats swarmed the property to remove the mountains of white garbage bags — while vermin hidden in the rotting debris quickly scattered.
Mayor Karen Bass, Councilwoman Katy Yaroslavsky and Department of Public Works staffers prompted the immediate excavation after a visit to the property this week.
Yaroslavsky revealed on Thursday that one ton of the trash removed had been flammable and hazardous material.
“I’m just so concerned about the gentleman that lived in this situation,” Bass told reporters outside the home.
Until now, residents had complained about the moat of trash pouring out onto the driveway, the overgrown plants and most distinctly, the repugnant odor wafting through their community.
“It’s been getting worse and worse, and the smell’s been getting really bad, and we’ve noticed more flies and insects,” neighbor Rebecca Yale told ABC 7.
The Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety deemed the property an “imminent public safety and health risk” around noon on Wednesday.
After getting the green light, a cavalry of city crews quickly started to remove trash from the yard, although the same could not be said of the inside of the house.
LAPD officers knocked, but the homeowner, identified as Raymond Gaon, according to public records was nowhere to be found.
“I’m horrified to think of what is happening inside that house,” Bass added.
Gaon, who has lived in the property since the mid-90s, was ordered to remove the garbage in 2014 and three years later, the city filed two misdemeanor criminal charges for noncompliance before the case was dismissed in 2019.
He’s now been offered mental health services, as concerns for his welfare have become a priority in the community.
“Is anyone taking care of him? Because I’m worried about him,” Yale told the broadcaster.
“I assume that there’s some mental health issues happening to have the house get to this point.”
Neighbors suspect that Gaon lives in an RV around the corner from the home and simply uses it as a dumping ground for the objects he collects.
His sister Leah revealed to ABC 7 that she had bought the property for her brother and would like it back to fix it up.
“I can get it in a good condition.”
She worries that without persistent care, the home is doomed to be her brother’s dumping ground forever.
