 |
|
|
|
Photograph by Chad Pilster
Junkyard Dogged: Winston Chew's beloved collection of junk has become a nuisance to his neighbors and a torment to his family.
|
Field of Broken Dreams
For the last time, the city of Campbell has ordered Winston Chew to clean up his junkyard lot.
But what if he can't?
By Genevieve Roja
While his neighbors were busy congratulating one another outside of the City Council chambers last Tuesday evening, Winston Chew stood alone.
After hearing two years' worth of complaints from Chew's neighbors regarding the agglomeration of debris gathered in his Campbell lot, city council voted to give Chew only 14 days to abate his property. Chew will have until July 20 to eliminate the junk, which one contracting company estimates will fill four 40-foot dumpsters.
But what looks like junk to Chew's neighbors is actually the fruit of Chew's lifelong obsession of collecting odds and ends. Chew, who has lived at 1321 Porgy Court in San Jose since November 1996 (the house falls under San Jose's jurisdiction; the lot is in Campbell), has accumulated a myriad of items, including used tires, old wooden boards, chain link fence materials, and a rocking chair, among thousands of other things.
Chew is a sentimental man, and that quality is manifested in his overflowing labyrinth of debris. But when I first enter the backyard, I also see signs of care and tenderness: scores of electric-orange goldfish are swimming in the percolating pond; guava and maple trees offer generous shading arms; and two canaries perch in a cage under the patio roof.
These Sunset magazine-like details stand out in stark contrast to the other items tucked under the covered patio.
Hidden there is a baby carriage intended for the teddy bears that Winston's wife Johanna collects. There are partly painted birdhouses, a Dutch windmill (a present from Johanna's mother); a workbench; plastic and wooden crates; tattered magazines; pairs of old Rossignol skis that belonged to the Chews' children; and even a clay kick wheel and slab that Winston had intended to restore for his wife's enjoyment.
Passing through a small wire gate, I see a remarkable, sprawling green lawn that is devoid of junk. The only hint of neglect is a small, primary-colored Playskool picnic table buried in the bushes. On the other side of the lawn, however, separated by thick, towering hedges, is the evidence that has caused a rift between Chew, city officials and the Chews' neighbors. Occupying approximately half an acre are wagons, weather-worn, yellowed boxes, six defunct lawnmowers, two sheds, a tractor, a green Dodge van; a 1968 Corvair, a motor scooter, hoses, a croquet set, sacks of gardening soil, and a toy tractor Chew said his son used to ride on when he was a little boy.
To his neighbors, this jumbled array of objects is a wasteland that resembles a city dump. Although the lot, and its contents are not visible from the street, the neighbors complain they can see it from their second-story windows. Chew's neighbor, Vera Minx, who spoke at the July 7 meeting, said Chew's penchant for collecting useless items is out of control.
"I've talked to him," said Minx, who lives with her husband Bill on Whitehall Ave. in Campbell. "He ignores [the problem]. He feels sorry for himself; he picks things up like this and like that. He's a collector--of junk."
Dressed in a white oxford shirt, white sweatpants, white socks, and white Etonic tennis shoes, Chew looked like an apparition among the throngs gathered in summery pastels and plaid shirts. After hearing his neighbors, Minx, Murray Martin, and Lee Roach gripe about their disgust with the newfound rat community and the expansion of his backyard collection, Chew addressed the council. He lifted a piece of white paper and waved it above his head.
"Imagine this to be a white flag," Chew said. "I give up. I alone take full responsibility for all of these matters. Please do not implicate my wife. She has nothing to do with it. It's all my fault."
Martin was unmoved by Chew's symbolic gesture: "I thought, 'there's no war going on in here. We just wanted you to clean up your yard. We're not in a battle with you'."
According to Martin, the neighborhood was lovely and serene prior to the Chews' arrival. Martin said the couple who used to own the property were so proud of their perfectly groomed backyard they would often give impromptu tours.
"We had a harmonized neighborhood," said Martin, who has lived on Porgy Court since 1966. "He's [Chew is] against us--why? We weren't against each other before. He has an internal mental battle going on and we have to deal with it. It's not going to go away."
Heap of Trouble
Campbell isn't the first city that has dealt with Chew. At their former residence in the city of Saratoga the Chews were issued two abatement orders between 1990 and 1994. Chew also received an order of abatement from the San Jose Hearing Board May 21 this year. It seemed inevitable that Campbell would eventually clamp down on Chew's property, which was jointly inspected by San Jose and Campbell code enforcement officers on May 20.
Campbell code enforcement officer Patti Petruzzelli has been handling the Chew case and fielding complaints from Chew's neighbors since last August. In just under a year, she has conducted a total of nine investigations and had one closed-door meeting with city senior planner Sharon Fierro and Chew on April 16. In her report, Petruzzelli noted that Chew's property met all the criteria that designated the lot a nuisance under the city's municipal code. The property was overgrown with weeds; it contained miscellaneous debris including vehicle parts; it contained broken household furnishings, equipment, and materials not being used for construction; and the property did not coincide with the character of the surrounding properties.
Under the code, property owners are typically given a 45-day period to abate their properties. But the Campbell City Council felt Chew had been given plenty of chances already following the string of investigations. This time he got the minimum decree: 14 days.
During his two-minute address to city council, Chew tried to explain his proclivity for collecting. "I meet a lot of people and they tell me things," he said. "They say, 'have I got a deal for you.' It's hard to turn people away. I have a soft spot." Finally Chew exposed the core of his problem; he suffered from an obsessive-compulsive disorder.
When Chew made this disclosure, Martin's ears perked up. It was the first time he had heard Chew admit his problem in public openly.
"What I'm thinking is that he's up against the wall now, 'cause the cities of Campbell and San Jose have got him pinned," Martin said. "He has to defend himself."
But Patti Petruzzelli wasn't surprised. At the April 16 closed-door meeting, Chew had confessed to Petruzzelli that he had OCD. Still, the city municipal code doesn't make allowances for such things. "I have nothing personal against Mr. Chew," Petruzzelli said. "Basically, I like him," she said. "He's a nice man, but we need to get this cleaned up."
'Lifelong Struggle'
When we're alone after the meeting and his neighbors are no longer in sight, Chew, a slight smile on his sunburned face, reflects on what's happened.
"I want to change," said Chew. "It's been a lifelong struggle. I want to kick this habit."
According to Michael Elliott, a clinical coordinator who is conducting research work for a study at Stanford Hospital's OCD Clinic, approximately four million people in the U.S. suffer from OCD. The disease "knows no geographic, economic, or ethnic boundaries," Elliott says.
OCD sufferers are commonly thought of as germaphobes, like the compulsive hand-washing author Jack Nicholson portrayed in the film As Good As It Gets. Chew is afflicted with a lesser-known branch of the compulsion called "hoarding." Hoarders collect useless thing such as cans and canisters, stones, garbage and clothing. So serious is this problem that hoarders can block entryways with their items. Eventually, the problem becomes a health hazard.
Typical symptoms of hoarding include arranging neat rows where the sufferer can walk in the house via pathways, says Elliott. Indeed, Chew exhibits all the classic symptoms of obsessive compulsive hoarding. He has created walkways within his junkyard and has stacks of papers and magazines reaching to the ceiling inside and around the house.
"They [hoarders] have one little path to the kitchen, one to the bedroom," Elliott said. "They know they're doing this. Control is the issue; they don't have the control to take care of it. It's a compulsion; you are compelled to do it. A lot of people think it's deliberate, but it's a compulsion."
OCD is incurable, but it can vanish never to appear again or subside and reappear in cycles. Treatment with the group of medications called selective seratonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI), which include Zoloft and Prozac, has also been shown to be successful in some cases.
Chew acknowledged that he has had regular sessions with Dr. Lorrin Koran, director of Stanford's OCD clinic. He said he has taken medication in the past, and 10 years ago he participated in a voluntary study at Stanford. (Because of doctor-patient confidentiality rules, Dr. Koran would not verify if Chew was his patient or had been a participant in the study.)
But after several courses of medication and working with Dr. Koran's novice research associates, Chew left the study. Kaiser, the Chew's health insurance provider, did not cover the treatment and the couple could not afford to pay for Winston's sessions with Dr. Koran.
Home Sweet Home
Chew's wife, Johanna, remembers a time when things were different. Their Campbell home was intended to be a new start, a retirement retreat from the Saratoga abatements that had put a damper on their homelife since they moved there in 1975 from a house on Berryessa Road.
Once the move to San Jose was finalized, Johanna says Winston began hauling his salvaged items "by the truckloads" to their new residence.
According to Stanford researcher Elliott, many OCD patients who suffer from hoarding do it to ease the mind.
"For some folks, it may be to lessen anxiety," he said. "Compulsion lessens anxiety. People get distressed about certain things. They need to do things to make themselves feel better."
Johanna, who has worked for the Moreland School District for four years and sells books over the Internet in her spare time, says her husband's problem has put a strain on their 30-year marriage. She says that she went through family counseling to help her deal with ensuing frustrations.
"I love him very much, but his collecting problem I can't do anything about," Johanna said. "Everything is wrapped up in the yard. We have this beautiful yard and we can't have family picnics or company. All the hopes and dreams we had when we moved there--they're gone."
She says her neighbors have chastised her because they feel she has not been effective in curbing her junk-collecting husband.
"My neighbor said, 'you're to blame because you allow it'," Johanna said. "How am I going to stop him? When I go out to the car to get something, I wish I was invisible."
Even their grown children, Johanna says, have tired of persuading their father to get his act together. Realizing the seriousness of his problem, the children and Johanna staged an intervention last month. They were unsuccessful.
"The children confronted him with his problem, but he didn't really get it," Johanna said. "They don't like to come here. I can't have my own children come in the house. They detest this mess; they just want us to have a better life."
"I think it was just an opportunity to let him know how much we care about him," said son Jonathan Chew, a Fresno firefighter. "We tried to give him a picture of how it [the collection] was impacting the family."
Jonathan was present during the May 20 joint-city inspection of his father's property. He asked if his father had made progress and informed Petruzzelli that Chew had filled two dumpsters and was filling another.
"I [told Petruzzelli] he was a wonderful, loving man," said Jonathan "He [Chew] has a hard time letting go of things. He sees values and dreams of projects in every item in that yard. It hurts him to let go of those things."
The Chews' kids have set their own boundaries. Johanna says they have offered to help Winston clean up, but refuse to help him only "move things around."
"We basically want to see our folks happy," said Jonathan, who added that he will try to help his father abate the property. "We're totally united as a family. We're very close, very supportive, but it's sort of a tough-love situation. We're not against my dad in any way; we're totally for him."
The Chews' financial situation is growing bleak as well. The 54-year-old Winston, who retired from his building inspection job with Santa Clara County in June 1998, now has a full-time construction job again. His wife continues to work for the school district, but their savings are depleted. The Chews cashed out their IRA and used the money to pay for the dumpsters in the abatement ordered by San Jose.
"With that, we reached the bottom of the barrel," said Johanna, who also said the couple is living on Winston's pension from the county.
JM Construction, which abates several properties for the city of San Jose and is one of three bidders for the city of Campbell, has priced the entire clearing of the lot at $11,760. They will charge an hourly rate of $6,600 for demolition and $800 for each of the four extra-large dumpsters.
Winston Chew knows he has no more excuses left to make. His disorder may recognize no geographic boundaries, but Chew must obey the laws of the land that are predicated by geography, property lines and the city code. He asks for the grace of God and perhaps the kindness of strangers to help him with his problem. In the meantime, he plans to give some of his wares away, sell others, and use the money from the sale to buy dumpsters in order to make his looming July 20 deadline.
"I have to apologize to my neighbors," said Chew at the city council meeting. "I'm sorry it took this kick in the pants to get going. I want to get on with my life."
|
|
|
|
Campbell, California
