On the 600 block of North Martel Avenue in the Fairfax District, tucked between two towering modern properties, is a brown, Spanish-style stucco home that has drawn the attention of neighbors because of the three-foot high stacks of garbage bags strewn throughout the front yard.
This is not the first time the house has been the center of controversy. Last year, Mayor Karen Bass visited the home and declared it a “public health emergency,” prompting city crews to clean up the property.
Although the home has again become an unsightly scene due to another accumulation of clutter, many neighbors are defending the homeowner, calling for sympathy and understanding.
Property records identify the owner as Raymond Gaon, who has lived in the two-bedroom home since the 1990s. While some neighbors have alerted television crews to report on what many have dubbed the “Trash House,” others are defending Goan as a misunderstood man who is simply collecting material for recycling.
Paul Wilson, a neighbor who lives across the street, said neighbors should try to show more tolerance toward Goan.
“If he was homeless, nobody would be pointing a camera in his face and trying to record him or his living situation,” Wilson said.
A friend of Gaon, Tonya Lee Jaynes, who helps individuals with hoarding problems, said Gaon is a Vietnam veteran who keeps a strict, meticulously ordered recycling regimen as a means to make income, she said.
“He’s a one-man operation, and this is how he makes his money,” Jaynes said. “He’s not bothering.”
She added that Gaon, 71, has declined to speak to reporters about his home.
Jaynes said Gaon is a private man who obtained a biology degree in college and allows the vegetation in his front yard to overgrow so he can observe butterflies and other insects. She pleaded with surrounding neighbors to extend compassion to Gaon, who she said has trouble breaking his routines.
“There needs to be protocol, there needs to be mediators, there needs to be the neighborhoods getting together and finding a solution,” Jaynes said.
Still, other neighbors, including Christopher Watson, who lives down the street for nearly two years, suggests the yard might represents a health and fire hazard that could endanger the homeowner.
“I noticed it when I first moved in, the trash piling up, but a couple of weeks ago when I walked by the street, I was pretty shocked,” Watson said. “I can understand how [city officials] think it might be a fire hazard or pose a risk to the place.”
The attention drawn to his yard this year and last year had thrown Gaon into a crisis, Jaynes said. With the media, neighborhood and city’s eyes on his home, Gaon has further secluded himself and refused help, she said.
“Neighbors call in the media to come here and disturb this very, very private person,” Jaynes said. “He could’ve had a heart attack if he saw this happening again.”
Wilson said that applying additional pressure would likely only exacerbate the problem.
“Mayor Bass and the city came out to clean up, and I get it, because it might have a smell or something, but there’s no need to turn it into a spectacle or shove the camera in his face for a local news story,” Wilson added.
The Times reached out to Bass’ office for comment.
Jaynes has tried to help Gaon clear the mess by periodically whisking away a few bags to be recycled. But for neighbors, she believes the only way to help the senior citizen would be to extend a hand of compassion.
“The way neighbors can help is to understand … people who have to do things their own way,” Jaynes said. “He’s been living decades his own way and getting his own way. We need to understand that.”
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