When foreclosures become eyesores

Florida Foreclosure & Real Estate News

Article Abstract: Unfortunately in some cases, foreclosures can have a negative effect on a neighborhood- at least for short period of time.  In some cases you will find a Florida foreclosure in a rather nice neighborhood that has not been maintained by the lender.  The pool is green, filled with algae and the lawn unruly.  This problem isn’t going away either. In March alone 234,685 homeowners were issued foreclosures in Florida. In fact, Florida foreclosure rates are some of the highest in the nation, only behind California.  For the entire Florida Foreclosure article please continue reading below:

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By Janie Porter 

Hillsborough County, Florida – Along a seemingly unending line of perfectly manicured lawns in a New Tampa golf course community, the eye stops on a house that is conspicuously out-of-place.

In the front yard, a Trojan condom box sits undisturbed in the midst of a mangled mess of weeds. A backyard pool is green with algae and muck, and a rotting wood chair bobs near one end.

On the front door of the house, a white piece of paper flails in the breeze. On it, there is a stamp from a Hillsborough County code enforcement board.

This house is a foreclosure.

It’s a bad dream facing thousands of homeowners around Tampa Bay. But for neighbors, foreclosures become a nightmare that doesn’t end.

Do you have a foreclosure horror story? Tell us about it in the comments section below the story.

As homes go into foreclosure, fixtures like outdoor lights don’t get repaired, moss grows on exterior walls and grass and weeds go unnoticed for months.

Unnoticed, that is, by everyone but the people who live next to it.

Bob Jester has lived next to a foreclosure eyesore in Inverness for the last few years.

“I’m just disgusted,” he said. “The inside of it’s just been completely destroyed. The toilets are ripped up. [The] electrical is ripped up. There’s [sic] holes all over the wall. Feces, garbage.”

When the backyard swimming pool became overgrown with algae and there were no fences to keep neighborhood kids out, Jester took it upon himself to figure out who the owner was. And his suspicions were right. The house had been repossessed by a mortgage company in California.

“I just got a problem with this house because I have to live next door with all the filth. This is a bigger problem than I can handle.”

Nationwide, about 1.2 million homes are in foreclosure.

In March, 234,685 homeowners filed for foreclosure. 30,254 of those are in Florida. In fact, Florida had the highest number of foreclosures of any state in the country, second only to California.

In Hillsborough County, there are about 400 new foreclosure filings each week. There’s even a service, Foreclosure Disclosure, which publishes a weekly foreclosure list for investors.

Every weekday from noon to 4 p.m., researcher and owner Tamra Wondrow goes to the Hillsborough County courthouse to sift through the 80 to 100 new cases filed each day. From there, the list is printed and posted online.

"I am putting in 10 to 12 hours a day and almost every Saturday and Sunday as well," she said.

Foreclosures in Hillsborough County:

Year	# of Foreclosures
2004	2,145
2005	1,865
2006	1,906
2007	6,262

So far in 2008, Wondrow says the foreclosure rate has continued to expand. In fact, there’s been a huge increase in the last 12 months.

Foreclosures in Hillsborough County:

2007	2008
Jan. - 241	Jan. - 1,377
Feb. - 296	Feb. - 1,450
March - 271	March - 1,589

Safety is a huge concern with foreclosure eyesores.

Oftentimes, trash, piles of >newspapers, overgrown lawns and algae-ridden pools sit untouched for months as a house goes through foreclosure.

“It’s an attractive nuisance to children. [I] guarantee kids are the first who will know there’s an abandoned house in the neighborhood,” said Hillsborough County code enforcement manager Jim Blinck.

When investigating a home, the first thing he does is walk around the property to check for unlatched gates. Oftentimes, there are pools behind those gates, so green with algae that a child wouldn’t be seen.

A green pool is the least of hazards at a two-story house that sits in a corner lot on West Pocahontas Avenue. There’s no roof, and the top half of the house is a charred skeleton of what it once was.

“It could have been kids in the neighborhood who started the fire on the inside,” Blinck said.

The front door is not locked.  Inside, Heineken bottles, trash and large clumps of ashes and burnt belongings cover the floor. Gang graffiti and a large bee hive adorn one wall in the living room.

Josephine Stoll has lived in the house next door for 14 years. For the last several months, she’s watched the house sit in disrepair.

“[It makes me feel] sick,” she uttered. “Sorry, I own a home next to it. It’s really bad-looking.”

It’s a sign of the times in a country cluttered by adjustable-rate mortgages, high gas prices and foreclosure "rescue" scams.

Still, the allure of home ownership remains a shining symbol of the American dream. But in some cases, that dream is turning into a neighborhood nightmare.

Currently, 85 homes in Hillsborough County are considered eyesores.

How to report a foreclosure eyesore:

1. Call your county code enforcement department.
2. Officers will investigate and get in touch with the property owner. By law, officers are required to give the homeowner a “reasonable amount of time” to correct the problem.)
3. If the owner doesn’t clean the mess up, the case is passed on to a special magistrate or code enforcement board, which can impose fines on the owner of the property. Fines can range from $100 to $500 per day.
4. Excessive fines can result in a lien on the property.

 

 

 

 

 

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