Vacant properties invite trouble

KANSAS CITY, Missouri - June 29 2008 - Some nights, Terry and Carrie Madden won’t even step onto their patio — the stench and mosquitoes from the abandoned swimming pool next door are overpowering.

The Maddens’ cash-strapped neighbors moved out in August, and the lender on the now-vacant house let it fall into disrepair. The pool is slime-green. The grass is knee-high. Once Carrie Madden had to call police to chase away burglars.

“It’s frustrating,” she said. “It’s an eyesore, and it sits right at the entrance to our neighborhood. It’s not only a blight, it’s unsafe.”

Kansas City officials say the house is a prime example of a little-reported but increasingly worrisome trend: Lenders are delaying foreclosing on homes vacated by owners who can’t keep up with payments.

Maintenance then stops, or it falls on taxpayers. And neighborhoods have to deal with a growing cancer of blight and falling home values.

“Someone has to maintain the property,” said Nathan Pare, the head of Kansas City’s dangerous buildings department. “If the owner surrenders the house, then it’s up to the bank. But some banks aren’t doing it.”

Vacant properties invite trouble
by Paul Wenske | McClatchy Newspapers