Clutter Is No Joke to Clown or His Neighbors

Some people use their closets and drawers for storage. Professional clown Terry Knutson prefers his bathtub.

That’s where he keeps his shoe boxes, folded paper grocery bags and 29 partial rolls of toilet paper.

The clutter, which extends throughout his Mission Hills property, is not part of Knutson’s Clownzo the Clown act. But it has played a starring role in the real-life predicament of Knutson and his neighbors for more than a decade.

Earlier this week, a Municipal Court judge ordered the professional jester to clean up his house and yard or face up to eight months in jail. The sentence, which follows previous, less severe court orders, was imposed after jurors convicted him on six counts, including maintaining a rodent harborage, permitting fire-hazardous refuse inside and outside a dwelling, and permitting trash, debris, garbage and overgrown vegetation to accumulate on a lot.

Neighbors who have complained for 15 years about garbage accumulating on Knutson’s property in the 15000 block of Vintage Street expressed hope Thursday that he would obey the court order and clean up the outside of his house by Dec. 15 and the inside by Jan. 15.

But two days after being sentenced, Knutson, 50, was unrepentant. In a two-hour interview in his house Thursday afternoon, the self-described “pack rat” offered a rare glimpse into the lifestyle of a compulsive collector.

“My life doesn’t need to be put in

order,” he said, surrounded by knee-high stacks of newspapers and other papers that litter his two-bedroom house, except for a narrow path to the bathroom and master bedroom.

“It’s true that it’s cluttered,” he added. “But it’s not accurate to call it trash and debris. Everything here has a purpose.”

The hundreds of newspaper clippings?

Ideas for cartoons Knutson hopes to produce someday.

The bucket of round, white shampoo bottle caps?

Faux pearls children can string into necklaces someday.

Disorder is an art, Knutson seemed to be suggesting when he stepped out into his untrimmed yard, avoiding scattered tools and other odds and ends.

“I was raised on a farm in the Iowa wilderness, and this looks nice and unkempt, just like that,” he said, with no apology for any offense taken by more meticulous natives of the Hawkeye state.

“I hate when everything looks so sterile and picture-perfect--it’s like a museum or hospital.”

Knutson’s yard is not likely to make the pages of House Beautiful. The narrow, one-acre lot is shielded by a huge magenta bougainvillea vine and two palm trees that hide an unkempt atrium and menagerie containing an opossum (“Pig Nose”), guinea pig (“Sha Na Na”) and chicken (“Eagle”).

The San Diego Freeway borders the property to the east, and a sound wall does little to muffle the constant roar of traffic.

But Knutson’s bright blue van, a mobile home and some of the paraphernalia in his driveway--including a couple of small merry-go-rounds and a doghouse for Freckles, his 200-pound St. Bernard--are visible from the street.

“I have to keep the shade down in the kitchen to avoid looking at that eyesore,” said Susan Durand, 41, a graphic artist who lives across the street.

“I try not to ever look over there,” agreed Joe MacPhail, a communications technician who lives next door.

Neither was among those who complained to authorities over the years. But concerns raised by other residents have resulted in several cleanup orders from the courts, said Lee Hintlian, a field deputy for Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson, who represents the area. Among them was an order to raze an illegally constructed second story he put on his house to store his growing number of possessions, Hintlian said.

By his own account, he was in legal trouble of a different kind in the early 1970s, when he was convicted of a misdemeanor count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor for photographing a 15-year-old neighbor girl topless.

In 1989, Knutson was convicted of assaulting a city fire inspector. The inspector was removing garbage from Knutson’s yard when Knutson attacked him with a nail-studded board, said Ted Goldstein, a spokesman for the city attorney’s office.

“He has a terrible temper,” said Pat Walker, his estranged common-law wife. “He didn’t used to be like that and so messy. I had to leave him because I didn’t want my kids living in a trash bin.”

His 20-year-old daughter from a previous relationship is only mildly disturbed by Knutson’s habits.

“I just think he sees his home as one huge filing cabinet,” said Kristena Martinez of Buena Park. “It’s not like he gets a lot of visitors or has a woman interest to impress.”

As for Knutson, he views himself as an iconoclast like Ross Perot, his choice for President. “He wasn’t going along with the flow, and neither do I,” Knutson said.