Lisa Ling shows the housing bubble aftermath
Lisa Ling has a story for KCET – a television station California – on what one might call the ground-level logistics of the foreclosure wave that’s sweeping through the the state’s recently erected cul-de-sacs and tract developments that is definitely worth watching.
Ling shows three different links in the post-foreclosure link: The so-called “trashout,” which technically is part of what WSR Sales & Management calls preservation services, lawn painting, and pool draining.
A trashout occurs when a contractor hired by the bank clears out the property. All belongings in the house are removed by workers who are free to take with them whatever they can carry. Whatever is left is tossed in a garbage container and hauled off to a dump for disposal. The owner of the property management company interviewed by Ling claims to undertake 15 trashouts a day. He stated that the company has tried to co-ordinate with charities – if for no other reason than to reduce landfill fees – but claimed that the logistics of it rarely work out because of time and contractual restrictions. So, off to the dump the stuff goes.
Ling’s story included video from a home where practically everything had been left behind. Computers, big screen TV, furniture, toys. The works. That’s apparently quite common (and in stark contrast to the reverse, where the previous owners rip out copper wiring and otherwise vandalize the building).
The lawn-painter is just a guy who spray-paints lawns that have turned brown with bio-degradable paint to provide some instant curb appeal for an abandoned foreclosed home. A $120 job, according to the report.
The pool drainers are local code enforcement officers who visit foreclosed homes with pools that have turned green and pose serious health hazards as mosquito breeding grounds. It takes two officers nearly three hours to drain a pool and according to the report the enforcers in question tackle 3-5 pools a week. One of the code enforcers supplies the quote of the report: “You know you’re in trouble when the lawns are brown and the pools are green.”
Ling also interviewed a home-owning couple still clinging to their property and its mortgage. They face a double whammy: The community around them is turning into a ghost town and their house is now worth less than half of what they paid.
It’s a good story, observational, well-paced and straight forward, and not particularly manipulative. Spend the 12 minutes it takes to watch it.
