In the arid Southwest, the backyard pool was the equivalent of the white picket fence: a sign the homeowners had achieved middle-class status. But as the foreclosure crisis emptied neighborhoods, the once-gleaming pools — caked with algae and infested with mosquitoes — became fetid reminders of all that was lost…
Robert Cole, 36, is an environmental health specialist with the Southern Nevada Health District. He and six others are charged with stopping the pools from becoming disease incubators. In recent years, as Sin City turned into Foreclosure City, the team has been swamped…
“As the economy went south, the number of green pools went north,” said Chris Conlan, supervising vector ecologist in San Diego County’s Department of Environmental Health, which stages weekly helicopter flyovers to spot rancid pools.
California, Arizona and Florida also rely on Gambusia affinis, or mosquitofish. The inches-long creatures can survive for months in stagnant water, and to them a batch of larvae is a prime-rib buffet.
RTFA. My guess is folks who really didn’t qualify for the storefront sub-prime mortgages they eventually defaulted on – are also those who leave the property damaged deliberately or at least conditions like these – a disaster waiting to happen over time.
Just think. We can reintroduce Yellow Fever and Malaria, give West Nile Virus a headstart for the summer.
I may be mistaken, but, didn’t I read this same story on DU about 2 months back?
This is old news. Been reported on dozens of times, starting more than a year ago. You need a new source for stories.
Often the problem isn’t that they left the property damaged, it’s that the banks turn off the electricity, the water service and any maintenance. Banks will not do anything with a foreclosed property that requires additional outlays. Pools go green quickly when without chlorine and filtering.
#2 igeek: …the banks turn off the electricity, the water service and any maintenance…
Draining the pool is the only “maintenance” they’d have to do. I’m no expert (far from it), but when foreclosure occurs, surely someone from the bank is sent to the property to assess its current value, right? Couldn’t that person just drain the pool and solve the problem?
If the pools are becoming a nuisance, and the bank now owns them, it’s their responsibility to fix it, just like when the HOA gives you a citation for not mowing your lawn.
# 3 kjackman,
I realize this article is about southern Nevada but, at least elsewhere, it will rain enough to collect in a pool and create an environment for mosquitoes. Draining is more maintenance the banks won’t pay for more than once.
Draining the pool is the only “maintenance” they’d have to do.
You can’t drain a pool unless it’s made out of concrete. (Or at least leave it without water for other than a very short period of time. Otherwise it collapses… the water is the only thing that holds the pool walls up.) I don’t have a clue about Nevada (or wherever this article is from) but here in Florida 90% of all pools have plastic liners and cannot be left without water.
Put up a bat house. Sheesh.
Yes rain will refill them. In ground pools usually need some type of submersible pump (usually electric again) to drain them since in most cases they are below grade.
Empty concrete pools also float like a boat so when empty they lift and can crack surrounding decks if there is much grounf water pressure. (yep, my house was brought from a bank 20 years ago and they had done just that. About a foot back from the edge there runs a crack around about half the pool. Fortunately it didn’t really lift and the deck is even and the crack not too bad).
Best choice are to keep filled and maintain of add the mosquito fish. The vector control here brings them around for free. I have a small pond they add to about once a month in the summer.
EASY way to keep it MOSQUITO FREE…ADD SOAP..
they cant breathe it..Even a THIN layer of oil on the surface..
Go for a skate people.
there is video called chlorine that explores the subculture of pool skating in abandoned neighborhoods across the US.
Waive the liability / trespassing in these areas, and allow the skaters to ride away, they will make sure the pool is empty. and it gets them off the street and local surrounds win win…
It won’t just be swimming pools breeding insect pests. It will also be abandoned house acting as havens for drug traffickers, and prostitution rings. Instead of kicking people out of their homes. Why not just allow them to get living their, under some low rent scheme, until a buyer can be found? Lots of people don’t own the place they’re living in. They lease or rent the property or apartment from renter. Why can’t the banks (or the government) be a renter? The banks basically got bailed out by the taxpayers, to be able to sit on these unsellable properties. And not to have to rent them out, until they’re sold. So we’re basically paying the banks the rent, they could have gotten from the people who could have continued living in these homes. They just would no longer have the equity, of ownership. Kicking them out means they’ll end up being a burden on the taxpayers, living in some shelter or something. So we’ve gotten stung twice. Letting the banks hold onto these vacant homes, virtually risk and cost free. Where’s the logic in that?!
Speter,
thats not the problem..
Its a strange fact that its better to leave the water IN THE POOL…
If you let it dry out, IT CRACKS.,
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