Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Treasure or junk? When it's piled too high, county colors it gone

In a handful of cases each year, code enforcers step in for a big cleanup.

By ASJYLYN LODER
Published February 20, 2007

It begins harmlessly enough. A perfectly good bed frame there in the trash.

A dresser. Maybe a toaster, or a washing machine, or a kite.

For Daniel Plants, it's car parts. Bumpers, fenders, steering boxes, engines.

"To be honest, junk kind of runs through my blood, in my family, from my dad," Plants said the day after Hernando County code enforcement officials enforced a court-ordered cleanup of his property, removing more than 3 tons of oddments from his Melanie Avenue yard.

It was one of two court-ordered cleanups completed last week, and among a handful Hernando County completes every year.

Pack rats and junk collectors - to the dismay of their neighbors and family - nestle themselves in their strangely beloved hoards, piecing together nests of junk mail, tin cans and plastic containers, all with an eye attuned to its inscrutable value.

As Plants put it: "To other people, my treasures are their junk."

The Web site for the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation says this: "Hoarding is defined as the acquisition of, and inability to discard worthless items even though they appear to others to have no value."

The disorder even made Oprah, titled "Inside the Secret Lives of Hoarders."

"I'm pretty sure my girlfriend and probably myself as well fall in that category," Plants said.

His girlfriend's pitfall is a common one: junk mail, magazines, newspapers. He's got a weakness for old bits of cars, as did his father. But, he says, he only holds on to "useful items."

Among the "useful items" removed from Plants' yard: a metal roof to a trailer home, rusted bed frames, and mysterious "wood and metal debris," said Mark Caskie of code enforcement.

They call themselves collectors. Troubled family members might dub them pack rats.

The namesake pack rat, smaller than the average rat, builds complex nests, called "middens," according to the Colorado Division of Wildlife. The furry creature follows a pattern well-known to intimates of the collecting-obsessed: "if they find something they want, they will drop what they are currently carrying. ... They are particularly fond of shiny objects, leading to tales of rats swapping jewelry for a stone."

"It's a good feeling when somebody finds something they can't find anywhere else because everybody else throws it away," Plants said.

He sees his role as that of preservationist, a votary of a singular faith, devoted to keeping scraps of history alive in the world.

But his neighbors thought not, and reported him.

"It takes a few years, but the county finally shut him down," said Frank McDowell, director of code enforcement.

McDowell has seen it all. Last year, one woman had 7 tons of debris removed from her property.

When he worked in Pasco County, McDowell encountered a man wearing seven watches on each arm and two different colored socks. His garage was filled with garbage "front to back, top to bottom, side to side."

He'd carved a warren amid the junk in his house.

"From 15 feet away, the smell would knock you off your feet," McDowell said.

He fondly recalled his longtime nemesis L.B. Richards, the infamous proprietor of the fondly nicknamed "Hubcap City" on U.S. 19.

The county would cart away Richards' junk, and Richards would sneak into the landfill at night and take it back. It was years before Richards finally scaled back his operation.

Hubcap City was sold in 2005, after Richards, suffering from Alzheimer's disease, entered a nursing home. As it turned out, McDowell had a relative in the same place, and visited with his former enemy.

Richards greeted him warmly, McDowell said, and McDowell brought him homemade pumpkin bread at Christmas.

Plants insisted that he's not dirty. He just likes stuff.

"The outright honest truth about it, I'd like to live in a nice, clean house, set up very simple, that was not cluttered, sanitary and everything, and have my business somewhere else," Plants said.

To his lasting disappointment - and the probable relief of his neighbors - the county will not license him for a salvage yard.

Asjylyn Loder can be reached at aloder@sptimes.com or (352)754-6127.

[Last modified February 19, 2007, 23:05:03]