Foreclosed Houses Are Eye Sores For The Entire Locality

Posted in Foreclosed House, October 9th, 2007 |

It is difficult to stay next to a house that has been barred up since the last six months. The overgrown garden is infested with rats and snakes. The swimming pools are stagnant and stinking. Lenders take on a step motherly attitude towards the foreclosed houses. Who will bother to take care of these orphans until the foreclosure procedure is duly completed? Neighbours in desperation for the sake of their own survival, are pitching in to give a clean touch and safe look to the locality.

Code enforcement departments are reporting increases in overgrown yards. High percentage of neglected reports came in from Osceola, Volusia, Lake and Orange as compared to the previous year. Seminole’s position is slightly better. Most of the reports are from abandoned foreclosed properties. A person about to be evicted cannot concentrate on the weeds in the backyard. The middle and upper income localities are worst affected. This is of course surprising for blue-collar areas. In some place the grass rises up to the hips.

Steps are being taken to bring back some sort of order and cut the grass down to its stipulated one-foot level. But the future owner will have to foot the bill. Fines are being levied in addition to the costs. But immediately the authorities are not equipped to tackle the problem of looking after so many units. The very nature of the problem is different. It needs immediate attention.
Neighbours are alternately helping but the problem is of such proportions that sporadic help is not the answer to it. On the practical side it devalues the area as many who are not in the foreclosure want to sell and get out of the abandoned eerie vicinity. Naturally prices tumble.

Some associations of house owners have allowed provisions that permit neighbours to mow the lawn. Funds are being raised for this that will later on be realized from the future owner.
The abandoned look is not only an eye sore but is also posing health hazards for the entire community. Each month code enforcement officials are dealing with more than one hundred instances of deserted houses. Vandals and drug peddlers are having a free time and this often leads to violence and murder. The neighbours can never tackle such situations without coming out unscathed in an unwholesome brush with the intruders.