Neighbors Incensed by Man Living in His Car Since 2000
Steve Graham has lived in a car parked in the backyard of his house for seven years, and his neighbors are getting fed up.
Graham, 55, didn't have to go very far-only to his car, parked in the backyard. He's lived there ever since, and LaDonna still lives in the house. "She's not going to support me not having a job and bumming around," Graham told reporters. "I'm trying my best to get a job and get up out of this rut."
But now his wife isn't the only person having trouble with Graham. Kenny and Cathy Waring, who live nearby, said that during the first year they tried their best to get along with Graham. But after a year went by, they began calling the police to complain about their neighbor. At first they were the only neighbors to complain about Graham, but as time has gone by and new people with children have moved into the area, more neighbors have begun complaining.
Graham's property is across the street from an elementary school and a park is just down the street. And Graham's blue 1989 Buick Century sits atop a concrete slab in his yard, covered by a large blue tarp held in place by cinder blocks and bricks. An extension cord runs between the house and the car, so Graham can run an oscillating fan, a small television, and a radio. "I get better reception there than I do in [the house]," Graham told reporters. "I listen to Rush (Limbaugh) every day, just about."
Neighbors say that Graham plays music loudly, often engages in loud, obscene tirades, and even goes to the bathroom outside in his yard. "Every day he's out there," Kenny Waring said. "He never goes into the house. He sleeps out there, he eats out there, he watches TV, he plays guitar...everything that you do in your house, he does out there."
Linda Sanders, who lives behind Graham, joined with more than a dozen families in the neighborhood in signing a petition asking the Pittsburgh City Commission to prohibit people from living in their cars on private property within the city limits. "You can't enjoy your backyard," said Sanders, who can see Graham's property just across the alley from her own backyard.
Sanders said that in mid-June, Graham was burning trash in his yard and the smell wafting across the alley was unbearable. "I walked out there, and the smell was terrible," she said. Sanders' son Ronnie, who had just returned from a tour in Iraq, came out the back door and told his mother, "It smells just like back in Baghdad." Ronnie explained to his mother that he had been on detail where they were required to burn excrement and he said the smell was exactly the same.
Graham denies that he has used his yard for a toilet. "No, I go elsewhere," he said. "I don't expose myself to people."
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