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Man caught living for 8 years among half-ton of trash in national forest, feds say
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2026
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I guess "1000lbs of trash" doesn't sound as bad as "half a ton"?
That's like, maybe 1-2 months of household, curbside waste for an average family. This dude was living there for 8 years.
If he was there for 8 years, that means he was paying taxes into the system for 40 years before he nope'd out and headed to the woods, which his taxes paid for.
And this is what he gets in return. Tsk tsk.
He'd accumulated this pile during 2 years at this site, so he's left similar messes in several other places. And he's got a long history of careless fires, like leaving them burning, even at the height of fire season. And he's got an SUV, so it's not like he couldn't have taken his trash out.
"The trash consisted of tires, plastic bags. trash bags, aluminum cans and other items of trash. I observed a canopy structure for his sport utility vehicle. The canopy structure was being utilized as a car port.”
Gatz, who is 65 years-old, according to public records, also had a fireplace with “active embers and a cooking station with 10-12 frying pans,” as well as “[d]ebris [that] consisted of three ladders, six to eight totes overfilled with debris… five black 55-gallon drums… eight tires, four bike frames, five gallons of motor oil, plywood, and other miscellaneous lumber around the campsite,”
That's not necessary stuff, it's a wildfire waiting to happen.
I'm sorry, WHAT?
4.9 lb/day x 4 people x 30 days = 588 lbs, so really not that far off.
https://govfacts.org/housing-infrastructure/solid-waste-management/waste-collection-disposal/where-americas-waste-goes/
Uhhh, 1-2 months?!? It’s just two of us in our household, but we usually don’t fill one 45L kitchen trash bag every two weeks by the time trash pickup comes. So probably 15lbs every two weeks? So about 60lbs every two months. It would be unfathomable to produce 1000lbs in two months.
is that a standard white kitchen bag that is a bit smaller than a black outdoor can liner? If so my wife and I are doing horribly. Its more than one a week and closer to two. That is with seperating recycling so if you include recycling we fill a super large contract type bag every week. Granted the recycling company instructs to not crush things because I believe they want to jack up the money they get.
Yeah, the standard white bag. We produce probably a bit less than normal blue bag of recycling a week. But basically all our food scraps go into either our own compost or the city compost, so we fill up a lot of compost bags. We also flatten our cardboard and tie it in a stack, so that cuts down on the volume a lot.
ah yeah. our city does not compost and we don't have something to do it. We flatten cardboard as that is the one thing the recycling company allows. Yeah compost would reduce it a lot.
One pickup load of trash, or what everybody who doesn't pay for trash service accumulates before driving it to the dump for $10.
Either he's hauling his trash out or he's extremely good at eliminating waste.
(He was there for 2 years)
Having been homeless and lived in a forest, you really don't create much trash. Depends I guess, but you just don't consume much when you're broke and living in a tent outside of society.
Great for the waistline too. Lots of outdoors activity and a perpetual caloric deficit.
I'd put money on him dumping it in a ravine nearby that they haven't found yet