Judge Clears Way for Compost Heap’s Removal

The man who calls himself Zeke the Sheik stood Friday in Pasadena Superior Court with a 3-foot-tall green onion in his hand and pleaded for time to save the colossal compost heap that he began in 1973. But Judge Harold E. Shabo issued a temporary restraining order clearing the way for Mountain View Cemetery to dispose of the 30-foot heap, which sits on a vacant parcel of its land adjacent to Zeke’s home in Altadena.

“This is my creation, my work of art . . . and they’re going to wipe me out,” Zeke, the alter ego of 47-year-old Timothy Dundon, said outside court.

Although the cemetery years ago gave Dundon permission to pile the steamy mass on its property, the county Department of Health Services says the hill is an illegal dump and that work to remove it must begin by Monday.

Dundon vowed to have himself nailed to a giant cross atop the mound when the bulldozers come.