Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass announced that the cleanup would happen at a house where meter-high piles of trash and debris had piled up across the property’s fenced yard and driveway.
The mayor said Wednesday that she only learned this week in regards to the Spanish-style bungalow within the Fairfax neighborhood that residents have called a “garbage house.” Neighbors say they’ve repeatedly complained in regards to the stench emanating from a whole lot of white trash bags piled up together with broken down vehicles, piles of newspapers, cigarette packs and other trash.
Standing outside the house, Bass said she would instruct officials to bypass red tape to make sure the home was cleaned up immediately.
“I don’t want to hear about any lawsuit or whatever, this to me is a public health emergency,” Bass said Wednesday. “There is a risk of fire and I am worried that the person there, in that place, will catch fire and lose their life.”
Hours later, cleaners in overalls and masks arrived and started loading trash onto trucks.
The Department of Buildings and Safety has handled greater than a dozen complaints related to trash and improper storage on the property since last July, in line with city records Los Angeles Times. The complaints are still under investigation, but the town issued an order in November to comply with the requirement.
As regulations weren’t followed and piles of trash grew, complaints increased this week, sparked partially by a post on the social media app Nextdoor and a report on Monday KTLA TV.
“It’s dirty,” said Miriam Kosberg, whose family has owned the property directly behind the home for many years. “There’s trash all the way to the back fence.”
Kosberg told the Times that she and her family heard the sounds of animals within the backyard and believed the swarm of mosquitoes in her yard was as a result of standing water and other trash round the corner.
Another neighbor, Jonathan Fromen, said the issue has been happening for at the very least a decade. The yard was cleaned up a bit in 2018 and 2019, but since then the trash has piled up again, Fromen told the Times.
