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Tonight the friends and family of Spencer Harris will gather to honor the 74-year-old Menlo Park man who died on May 17.
According to police reports, Mr. Harris received a 24-hour notice to leave his Roble Avenue apartment six days before shooting himself. After officers performed a welfare check and found he wasn’t home, a code enforcement officer determined that piles of belongings, a sign of hoarding, had rendered his home uninhabitable.
Of the three hoarding cases the Menlo Park police department has handled since 2006, only one got a 24-hour notice. Police spokeswoman Nicole Acker said the number of safety and fire hazards made it unsafe not only for Mr. Harris, but others in the apartment building as well.
Those living at a home on O’Connor Street were given a two-week notice in October 2011, and a resident of Del Norte Avenue didn’t have to vacate at all since only a yard clean-up was needed, according to police records.
The service for Mr. Harris begins at 7:30 p.m. at the Menlo Park Presbyterian Church at 950 Santa Cruz Ave. in Menlo Park.
Donations in honor of Mr. Harris may be made to the Sierra Club or to the San Francisco Symphony.
● See a memorial in Lasting Memories, where people can leave a remembrance.
The Almanac report of Mr. Harris’s suicide did not say what happened to his hoard when he was evicted from his apartment or what was done by city staff to allay any anxiety he suffered upon separation from his apartment or his belongings.
How about a follow-up story?