Westside : Scavengers’ Other Collection: Citations

One person’s trash is another person’s treasure.

Old adage aside, the residents of Parnell Avenue in West Los Angeles have lost patience with a particularly messy set of neighbors.

For more than 20 years, they have shared their well-kept residential street with a family that hoards trash in epic proportions, flooding their front lawn on a nightly basis with a slew of cans, bottles, newspapers and plastic bags, some of which they sort and sell to an independent contractor the next day.

The rest of the rubbish they squirrel away in their garage and fenced back yard, creating health, safety and fire hazards.

Last December, fire officials emptied both areas of Leslie and Georgette Earle’s home of more than three tons of rubbish, including newspapers that were 10 years old. Georgette Earle declined to comment.

The haul qualified the home as one of the city’s 30 trash hoarding hot spots.

But despite warnings from the city Department of Building and Safety and two citations issued last month, the owners refuse to stop squirreling away glass, newsprint, aluminum and plastic.

Large fines and even jail may not deter them, according to Dennis Bogard, who monitors about 500 households in the city of Los Angeles known for hoarding. “They are going to fill up again,” he said. “Collecting is a disease. They consider that their bank, so they are going to keep making deposits.”