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Article
Courtesy of The Orlando Sentinel
By
Mary Shanklin
June
21, 2009
The first clue that something's wrong with the million-dollar, lakefront home in a guarded, gated community near Windermere is the ornamental liriope grass piled in clumps by a tractor-trailer. Then there are the missing sprinkler heads. And the partially dug up palm trees.
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Inside
the house, the custom-made kitchen cabinets, granite counter
tops, appliances, switch plates, toilets, crown molding —
everything of value — has been stripped from the floors,
ceilings and walls. There's a gaping hole in the former kitchen
where the counter-top island had been. The master tub with
burnished bronze faucet has been ripped from its casing.
Vandals aren't to blame: The owners, facing foreclosure,
apparently hired a contractor to strip the house before the bank
could take possession.
According to the notes taken by county code-enforcement officers
who cited the property Thursday for multiple violations, the
"home is being dismantled ... [by someone] hired by the
homeowner to remove anything of value from the home, all sinks,
tubs, toilets, cabinets, electrical outlets including exterior
fixtures & outlets. crown molding and remaining furniture
have been removed from the home."
A
year ago, residents in Central Florida neighborhoods hit by
waves of foreclosures lamented the overgrown lawns and empty
windows as tens of thousands of homeowners walked away from or
were forced off their properties. Now, with foreclosure actions
running |
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Manny
del Valle, who runs a business cleaning up foreclosed homes, looks at the
thousands of dead bees inside a foreclosed home in Kissimmee.
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at
more than double last year's pace and homes sitting vacant for much longer
periods, unkempt yards are the least of residents' concerns.
In an east Orange County subdivision, deputies found a crop of marijuana plants under cultivation in back of an abandoned house. In the Beacon Park community near Orlando International Airport, passers-by picked through a mound of household belongings that had been tossed into the front yard of a vacated home. Throughout the region, empty homes without electrical power and seemingly without owners are slowly rotting away in Florida's unrelenting heat and humidity.
"The mold sets in immediately," said Manny del Valle, owner of Foreclosure Cleanup Pros, a Maitland business that is often called to reclaim foreclosed homes after a bank or lender takes title to the property.
Earlier this week near Kissimmee, black streaks of mold climbed the walls of a foreclosed home vacated by the owners in April. In the living room, thousands of dead bees lay on the soiled, moldy carpet next to a window.
Just three weeks ago, that pile of bees had been only half that size, del Valle said. Elsewhere in the house, mosquitoes have taken hold in toilets, and well water has stained the tub the color of clay.
"It's a pretty big change and a pretty quick change" in just a short time, del Valle said. And a kicked-in door frame was evidence that natural forces weren't the only things at work on the house.
In other foreclosed homes that del Valle has cleaned for banks, former owners have smeared feces on the walls and hidden dead rodents in cupboards and attics.
"They're doing it out of spite. What they will do is trash the house and blame the bank," he said. "I'm not saying who's at fault here, but is it really the right thing to do to trash a house because you can't pay for it anymore?"
Last month, deputies found more than 90 cannabis plants growing behind and inside a foreclosed and vacant house in Orange's Rio Pinar neighborhood. A neighbor had become suspicious when he saw four men walking to the backyard carrying water jugs. After staking out the house, the deputies found and arrested two 20-year-old men.
Crops of pot plants are uncommon at foreclosed homes, said Orange County Sheriff's spokesman Jim Solomons. But such houses can and do attract other criminal activity, such as vandalism and theft.
At the cannibalized, million-dollar home in the Windermere area, owners John and Allyson Barry received the foreclosure notice on their $1.1 million mortgage in April from Deutsche Bank.
The Barrys had purchased the property for $1.1 million four years earlier with an adjustable-rate loan that fluctuated from 7 percent to 13 percent. Neighbors said that, after the couple left several weeks ago, a contractor began picking apart the home to remove anything of value.
Attempts to contact the Barrys were unsuccessful, and the bank did not respond to inquiries about the property.
A neighbor, Albert Malmsjo, said that what was done to the house should be a crime.
"If it isn't against the law, it should be," he said. "Eventually what's going to happen is that someone is going to have to pay to have the house torn down. Now we have a house that's basically not salable."
County code-enforcement officers cited the owners Thursday for failure to maintain the pool, whose water was bright green. They also cited them for failing to repair and replace electrical outlets, plumbing, cabinets, counters, walls, ceilings and floors.
What's not certain in these cases, said Orange County Code Enforcement Manager Bob Spivey, is when the bank will step in and take control of the property.
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