Edmund Trebus

Edmund Trebus
in 2002.
Born	Edmund Zygfryd Trebus 11 November 1918 (1918-11-11) Prussia
Died	29 September 2002(2002-09-29) (aged 83) Haringey, North London, England, United Kingdom
Known for	A Life of Grime

Edmund Zygfryd Trebus (11 November 1918 – 29 September 2002) was a Polish-born English man and compulsive hoarder, who came to fame when he was featured on the British television documentary series A Life of Grime.

Biography

When Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939 Trebus was conscripted into the Wehrmacht. He was then captured and served with the Allied forces in Italy, in an anti-tank unit of the II Corps of the Polish armed forces, which was under British command.^[1]

After moving to England just after the Second World War, Trebus married. He and his wife had five children. After Trebus' wife died, his children seldom visited.

Trebus had been "a collector" all his life and he was often to be seen pushing a hand cart filled with his latest acquisitions, which he would carefully sort into separate piles in his garden and home. One of Trebus' major loves was Elvis Presley, and he managed to collect and store away almost every single record ever recorded by the artist.

In his eighties, living alone in a run-down house in Crouch End in north London, he was constantly in trouble with the environmental health department of the London Borough of Haringey, because of complaints about the rubbish surrounding his home. He lived in a tiny area on the ground floor in his house, surrounded by piles of rubbish, because he never threw anything away. In the BBC documentary series A Life Of Grime, Trebus was repeatedly shown arguing with council workers who had been instructed to clear his house of the 515 cubic yards of rubbish it contained. He was eventually re-housed at the Trentfield Nursing Home in Southfield, Haringey,^[1] where he died at the age of 83.

See also

• Compulsive hoarding
• Alexander Kennedy Miller
• Collyer brothers

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Staff, Duncan. "Obituary of Edmund Trebus". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2002/oct/05/guardianobituaries. Retrieved 8 August 2011. 

External links

• "Stick it up your chuffer!" - the Edmund Trebus memorial site
• Environmental Health Journal article
• The Independent article
• The Telegraph article

Persondata
Name	Trebus, Edmund
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	11 November 1918
Place of birth	Prussia
Date of death	29 September 2002
Place of death	Haringey, North London, England, United Kingdom