本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛April 11, 2002
At 71, Ordered to Clean His Room
By SARAH KERSHAW
ou don't need the sensibilities of a monk to be overwhelmed by the amount of stuff that is jammed, crammed, packed and stacked inside the tiny apartment of an elderly man living in Brooklyn. He has 17 suitcases, 15 folding chairs, 13 clocks, 7 fans, 6 brooms, 5 feather dusters and at least 2 each of most appliances bigger than a breadbox.
Every last speck of space in his 500-square-foot, one-bedroom apartment in Brownsville is spoken for, layered over and piled with items, things and doodads. But in a city where room is often a daydream and consulting careers are built on the pursuit of closet space, is it so wrong to clutter?
It is if you get caught.
And so it was that Fei Xu, a proud pack rat from China with a flare for bargain hunting and a penchant for possessing, was found guilty by a Brooklyn Housing Court judge of having too much stuff.
Accused of excessive cluttering, Mr. Xu (pronounced Shoe), 71, was taken to Housing Court by his landlord and then ordered, late last month, to pare down.
There were no complaints filed with the New York Fire Department and therefore no inspection to determine whether Mr. Xu's apartment posed a safety hazard, department officials said after checking the building records.
Informed of Mr. Xu's controversial habitat, Jimmy Maguire, a department spokesman, said that as long as sprinklers or exits in the apartment were not blocked — which they were not, as of Tuesday — Mr. Xu would not be in violation of safety codes.
"Maybe it's something personal," Mr. Maguire said. "I'm only half his age and I've got a lot of stuff. And it's only going to double."
There is a certain order to the chaos inside Mr. Xu's apartment, a kind of systematic stuffing, where things are neatly crammed into small spaces, not strewn about.
However, in December 2000, a federal housing inspector did find Mr. Xu in possession of too many things, saying the "debris" was "exceeding capacity" and "blocking hallway and doors," according to an annual inspection report.
Worse for Mr. Xu, a home health attendant who immigrated to New York 12 years ago, was that the judge hearing his case paid a visit to the apartment in question — somewhat typical in Housing Court cases — and agreed with the landlord that the dwelling was overstuffed.
In housing regulation parlance, the judge ruled in favor of the landlord's holdover petition, deeming Mr. Xu a nuisance because of his excessive items and requiring him to remove items.
Court officials said that holdover petitions are common in New York and frequently involve garbage, foul odors, large numbers of animals — a Manhattan tenant with 100 cats was provided as a prime example — and clutter.
And so, by order of the Civil Court of the City of New York, County of Kings — Housing Part, Mr. Xu is required to remove half of his belongings this week or face eviction from his apartment at 1704 St. John's Place, a federally subsidized apartment building for the elderly.
The lawyer for Mr. Xu's landlord, the St. Marks Senior Citizens Housing Development Fund, said that the building manager and landlord had given Mr. Xu several warnings about the clutter before taking him to court. And Gail K. Cromer, the lawyer, said that she had been to the apartment three times — before Mr. Xu began dismantling some of the clutter, including what she described as an "island" of stuff packed on, around and under a table in the middle of the living room.
She said that while there was no Fire Department inspection citing hazardous conditions, "with all the stuff in that apartment, one's common sense is that it's a fire hazard."
Ms. Cromer added: "Every nook and cranny in that house was stuffed. There was only a 14-inch-wide walkway through the apartment. There must have been 30 suitcases. There were computers, excess typewriters — you name it, it was in there. We saw a very large leather coat in there. Mr. Xu is a tiny man and this coat would not fit him. It was apparent that this is an individual who collects things."
Mr. Xu, who was a physics professor in Shanghai before he retired and moved to New York City, where he took jobs as a doorman, a security guard and then a home health aide, said he felt that much of the opposition to his stuff stemmed from cultural differences.
Asked why, for example, he owns so many clocks, he said through a translator: "Many is such a subjective word. For me, many is not too much. For you, it may be."
He explained that he grew up poor in Shanghai and felt emotionally attached to all the items he worked so hard to pay for — every towel, umbrella, book, glove, fax machine, microwave oven and typewriter.
Call it a Depression-era mentality, Mr. Xu added, fidgeting with one of his many letter openers, "but I don't want to waste things."
In addition, he said, he is a skillful shopper and has won many of his things — including several of the clocks and suitcases — through raffles at his church.
Asked why he owned between 2 and 20 of so many things, Mr. Xu said that he was saving the duplicates for one of his two sons, who plans to immigrate from China as soon as he gains the proper papers.
Mr. Xu, who represented himself in court and said he was searching for a lawyer to help him appeal the ruling, said that his experience with the legal system had left him disillusioned about life in America.
In Communist China, he said, there were restrictions on civil liberties and on the number of children a person could have, but no one interfered with his clutter.
"I thought this was a free country," he said.
On Tuesday, Mr. Xu somberly began the court-ordered spring cleaning of his apartment, 7A. By 4 p.m., the hallway outside his door was lined with suitcases, folding chairs, one microwave oven, one typewriter, one printer and one VCR.
Between what was in the hallway and what he had managed to throw away, he had removed roughly a quarter of his belongings from the apartment, he said.
But now he was stuck, he said. He could part with nothing else.更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net