08-05-2025
‘Eccentric' hoarder threatened with jail for not clearing jungle-like garden
A 'very eccentric' hoarder has been threatened with jail for not clearing his jungle-like garden.
William Glyn Cross, 80, faces a possible prison sentence if he does not allow council workers to tidy up the outside of his home in Thornhill, Cardiff.
The retired teacher has attracted the ire of his neighbours because of his garden, which is so overgrown that the house cannot be seen from the road.
The garden is littered with urine-filled milk bottles that Mr Cross says he uses as fertiliser. But his neighbours have accused him of creating a hotspot for vermin.
Cardiff council said he had caused 'unnecessary suffering' to others on his road because of the 'state of his back garden'.
The authority has now secured a criminal behaviour order that gives the authority powers to enter the property by force to clear the garden.
'This has been going on for two years, and his neighbours should not have to continue tolerating it,' said Norma Mackie, a local councillor.
'We have tried to help on numerous occasions, but even when our contractors went to clear the accumulation of waste on his behalf, he refused them access. There was no alternative but to take action against him.
'Now that the criminal behaviour order is in place, the council has powers to enter the property by force to carry out the work, if we need to do so.'
Mr Cross, who read chemistry at the University of Oxford before becoming a science teacher, has previously admitted 'getting the balance wrong' in his garden since he moved there in 1988.
'I am not proud of being a hoarder. I do need help, it's become too much for me to control at my age,' he said in 2023. 'But I'd rather pay people to help. I don't want to be bossed around.'
He has previously said his hoarding, which other members of his family have also struggled with, became worse after he and his wife divorced in 2012.
In 2023, he was fined £250 for failing to comply with a waste enforcement notice issued by the council in 2022 that ordered him to clean up the garden.
He was fined a further £100 last month for not complying with the notice.
