Another result of mortgage mess: Slimy pools

updated 2:55 p.m. ET Nov. 21, 2007

CONCORD, Calif. - Standing on the edge of a swimming pool gone bad, public health worker Jeremy Tamargo scoops up a sample of murky, brown water to make sure the mosquito treatment he administered earlier is still working.

A collection of plastic toys stashed in a corner of the yard and a stuffed toy floating forlornly in the swampy water indicate a family once played here, until foreclosure forced a move.

Now the once-sparkling, turquoise jewel is a “green pool,” a legacy of the foreclosure crisis — and a breeding ground for millions of potentially disease-carrying mosquitoes that have kept health officials busy in California and elsewhere.

“It’s always in places where you least expect it,” said Tamargo, who is on the front lines of finding and treating abandoned pools in Contra Costa County’s suburbs east of San Francisco, an area with large numbers of foreclosed homes. “Could be a $500,000-home neighborhood, could be a million-dollar home neighborhood, and in the back yard there’s this.”

Authorities can order owners to take care of properties, for instance, treating or draining pools. The problem is finding who’s responsible for an empty house that may have been flipped more than once.

“If you’re a building official or a zoning inspector for a local government you really have to become almost like a CSI investigator just to track down who you should be talking to,” said Joseph Schilling, director of policy and research for the Washington, D.C.-based National Vacant Properties Campaign which focuses on the problem of abandoned houses.

“Nobody wants to take responsibility,” said Tamargo. “I guess they figure because they’re not living here or whatever it’s not their problem any more. The banks — this is probably the least of their worries.”

So, for something that can’t wait, like green pools, local officials fix the problem themselves and then try to seek reimbursement.

In an effort to force ownership of the problem, officials in Chula Vista, a city south of San Diego, passed an ordinance requiring lenders to notify the city after recording a notice of default if the property is vacant, pay a $70 fee and hire property management firms.

The ordinance has been in effect for a month and so far there have been about 30 voluntary registrations and notices of violation are being processed for another 30, said Doug Leeper, code enforcement officer.

Chula Vista, a city of about 175,000, has hundreds of homes in foreclosure, so, for now, the city has been fixing what has to be fixed, “having to put the money up front we really don’t have,” said Leeper.

Efforts to quash green pools got a boost earlier this year when California’s Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency, providing about $6 million for mosquito control, surveillance — including flyovers to look for the telltale signs of oblong and kidney-shaped brown blotches — and information campaigns urging neighbors to report neglected pools. The state has a hot line, 1-877-WNV-BIRD, for reporting possible signs of trouble such as green pools or dead birds. (Birds host and transmit West Nile virus.)

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