Olympic freestyle skiing star Eileen Gu has sparked fierce backlash among her neighbors in San Francisco after a huge pile of trash was left outside her home this week.
According to The San Francisco Standard, a large pile of discarded furniture and other items trigged complaints from neighbors in the upscale Sea Cliff area of the city.
It’s claimed that on Tuesday there was a couch, mattress, broken lamp, clothes, books, medication bottles and other debris piled up outside the $1.8 million property on 25th Avenue.
The pile was even blocking a fire hydrant, prompting neighbors to launch a complaint through San Francisco’s 311 system.
That prompted a visit from Recology, a waste management firm based out of San Francisco, and they surveyed the mess and found no collection had been scheduled.
The worker reportedly knocked on the door of the home but there was no answer and they initially refused to move the items.
A pile of trash outside Eileen Gu’s San Francisco home has sparked uproar among neighbors
Gu, pictured at the Monaco Grand Prix last week, owns the $1.8 million home in Sea Cliff
A neighbor, Ira Glick, tried to call Gu, who attended last week’s Monaco Grand Prix, and her family before they eventually responded on Tuesday afternoon.
Gu’s mom, Yan, insisted she had packed the trash into 20 boxes and covered them up in case of rain. She claims she moved them to the curb at 1am and the 311 complaint was then made just hours later.
Yan blamed the items being scattered across the curb on ‘vicious people’ or scavengers and said she found a shirt with her daughter’s name on it left among the pile. She confirmed a collection had been scheduled for later on Tuesday.
Gu, who grew up in California and is a Stanford University student, became the most decorated freestyle skier in Olympic history at the recent Milan Games with a tally of six medals.
But the 22-year-old’s choice to compete for China, the country of her mother’s birth, was a huge source of scrutiny during the Winter OIympics. Vice President JD Vance even criticized her decision.
‘Somebody who grew up in the United States of America, who benefited from our education system, from the freedoms and liberties that make this country a great place, I would hope they would want to compete with the United States of America,’ the Vice President said in a Fox interview.
‘So, I will root for American athletes and I think part of that is people who identify themselves as Americans. That’s who I am rooting for this Olympics.’
Gu has been branded ‘shameful’ by conservative commentators for representing China – seen as a ‘sports-washing’ coup for America’s Communist adversary.
China has leveraged Gu’s glamorous, Western-educated image to deflect international condemnation over the repression of Uyghur Muslims and the dismantling of democratic freedoms in Hong Kong.
Gu has been physically attacked on her college campus, received death threats and is relentlessly pressed by the media on geopolitics.
The trash incident also appears to be the latest chapter of a simmering feud between Gu’s family and their neighbors.
Gu became the most decorated freestyle skier in Olympic history at the recent Milan Games
But her decision to represent China sparked criticism, including from vice president JD Vance
A neighbor revealed the Gu family had just employed a gardener amid a dispute with another nearby resident over their respective boundaries.
Another claimed they had not had any interaction with the Gu family for four or five years after a dispute over a new driveway.
Gu’s mom has accused that neighbor of having spinning weather fans that shine light into their home ‘like a disco ball’, meaning they keep the curtains shut.
Other complains include one from April that alleged the ‘neglected’ property had overgrown vegetation and trash issues that was attracting rodents and birds. However, a city inspector found there were no violations.
There was also a sewage-related complaint in January 2024 with records describing standing, bubbling sewage in the backyard. A contractor cleaned the area and agreed to get permits for a permanent fix.
