One Los Angeles family’s dream home is slowly turning into a cluttered nightmare after their neighbors turned the sprawling six-acre property into a dangerous junkyard.
Elena Malone said she and her husband “fell in love” with their three-bedroom Sun Valley home when they purchased the $1.2 million property in 2021 and felt it was the perfect place to raise their two children. KTLA report.
But when their neighbor’s junk collection “grew” – burnt car batteries, garbage bags, debris, moldy clothing and even medical waste piled up outside their front door – the place they believed was “safe” for their children was transformed.
Aerial footage of the area taken by KTLA shows dozens of vehicles, large appliances like refrigerators, and even shipping containers strewn about so densely that it appears impossible to pass.
The mother of two is most concerned about the region’s susceptibility to wildfires, especially with fire season fast approaching.
“If there’s a fire and we can’t get out the front gate, we’re stuck in here,” Malone told the outlet.
La Tuna Canyon, a hiking trail within Sun Valley, is notoriously prone to wildfires.
The 2017 La Tuna Fire burned over 7,000 acres and was the largest wildfire in Los Angeles in the past 50 years.
Oddly enough, the fire may have been the source of some of the trouble the Malones had with their neighbors, who kept collecting the items.
Landowner Mary Ferrera said her son, David Ferrera, lives in a makeshift junkyard. LA Times When a fire destroyed most of their property in 2017, her son’s hoarding led to the chaos the neighborhood faces today.
“He started scavenging for metal to survive, which may have triggered or exacerbated his metal hoarding,” the 80-year-old retired teacher told the outlet.
Over the next few years, the land was hit more often by fires than landslides, making the problem worse.
“We believe the trauma of all this, and possibly unresolved trauma from his past, motivated him to seek out more ‘things’ to replace what he had lost,” Mary Ferrera wrote.
According to the LA Times, in 2020, before the Malone family moved in next door, an anonymous tipster accused the property of operating an unlicensed junkyard.
That year, multiple government agencies investigated the property, specifically after allegations that the Ferreras had “dumped drums of chemicals into the river,” the Los Angeles Police Department told the news outlet.
The EPA counted 114 vehicles on the site that year, five of which were deemed “significant” by the California Highway Patrol, either stolen or possibly involved in crimes.
Even more concerning is that the EPA found the soil to contain high levels of substances including arsenic, lead and cobalt that exceed federal safety standards.
In an assessment four years ago, authorities determined the makeshift junkyard contained “high levels of hazardous materials.”
A 2021 EPA report called for excavation and disposal of the contaminated soil, but according to the LA Times, Mary Ferrera told the agency that the EPA “threw us away like a hot potato” and she hasn’t heard from them in three years.
David Ferrera, 50, has been using the makeshift junkyard for free since his mother took ownership in 2014 after he failed to pay for the land.
Mary Ferrera says she understands she is a “helper” but she cannot force her son to leave because she loves him enough to abandon him.
“It’s an addiction,” she told the Los Angeles Times about her son’s hoarding problems. “It’s one of the most difficult mental illnesses to treat.”
But for Malone, her addiction was now affecting her family life, a situation made worse when her husband, Josh, was diagnosed with cancer.
“My husband just finished treatment for cancer,” she told KTLA.
“When my son was having chemotherapy and he was vomiting, I was locked behind this gate. I couldn’t even go out and get my son because my car was here.”
Malone said after the incident he called on city officials to address the issue but has yet to see any real progress.
“The LAPD is saying, ‘You can’t be on the site because it’s hazardous waste.’ The EPA is saying, ‘We’re only concerned about what’s underneath the site, but there are too many vehicles so you can’t be on the site, so you can’t be on the site until the city of LA gives you the go-ahead,'” she explained.
She worries that progress on removing hazardous waste will only come after something tragic happens.
“These agencies have let our families down and our entire community down, so at this point it seems like they’re just waiting for the next fire,” Malone said.
