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Edmund Trebus Became Famous After Appearing on TV
In the United Kingdom, the BBC’s equivalent of Hoarders was a TV series called Life of Grime. Edmund Trebus became famous when he appeared on the show in 1999. Trebus lived in his 5-bedroom house where every single room was filled with junk. Many of the rooms were filled with his collection of vacuum cleaners and cameras. He was living in the house alone without running water or electricity. His hoarding was discovered after neighbors complained, because the home was attracting rats, and everything smelled like rotting trash. Trebus was using his backyard as a toilet, because his indoor plumbing no longer worked.
When the Health Department arrived to help clear out his home, Edmund Trebus was furious, telling everyone to get off his property. He was a Polish war veteran, and survived living in the concentration camps during World War II. Finally, they cleaned his house. It took 30 days, and they filled up five large trucks and 11 skips with trash. But two years later, Edmund Trebus had done it again. His house was filled with trash all over again, and he appeared on a second episode of the show. When he passed away in 2002, The Guardian wrote up a lengthy obituary about him, which tells his entire life story.