Here's a scene from American Casino, a new documentary about the subprime lending scandal and the resulting $12 trillion Wall Street bailout. Another consequence of the meltdown -- the swimming pools of foreclosed homes have become mosquito breeding grounds.
How foreclosures breed mosquitoes
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The problem of abandoned homes and swimming-pools-as-breeding-grounds was also covered in an episode of "Dirty Jobs" when they visited post-Katrina New Orleans.
An interesting footnote to the financial crisis, but I'm not sure I would describe the mosquito infestation as "post-apocalyptic" or the one sign that would point to that things have "gone off the rails." And concerns about the financial crisis leading to plagues of west nile virus are just FUD.
Q: what do skeeters and the subprime lending criminals have in common..
A: They're both bloodsuckers needing control measures.
Then again? We CAN exploit those pool's thriving ecosystems. To reward the the worst offenders in the artificially orchestrated and arguably RICO violating lending scams. Staking them out next to those pools -AS skeeter food might be Karma indeed..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profiteering
I'm just wondering why we haven't erradicated mosquitoes yet. Literally they suck and have no positive effect on the ecosystem.
Solution for a $1: bag 'o guppies. Toss them in and walk away.
Mosquitoes can breed in even small amounts of standing water. I remember visiting the enormous Pokfulam cemetery in Hong Kong a few years back and seeing that the marble vases for flowers on each gravesite had been tipped over on their sides to prevent water accumulating in them, part of a local program to try to eliminate the dengue-carrying aedes aegypti mosquito. A few hundred unused swimming pools would be a gift to the mosquito population.
Clearly, we need a program to introduce bats and insectivorous birds like swifts (to eat the adult mosquitoes) and fish (to take care of the larvae). If someone can find a commercially-useful fish species that can thrive in water with elevated levels of chlorine, foreclosure aquaculture could be the new growth industry for the next decade ...
When did it become OK to be irresponsible because you have financial difficulties?
Draining the pool and placing a cover on it is not terribly expensive, and prevents a greater danger than mosquito borne virus - that a local child might fall in the open pool and drown or hurt themselves in the fall.
Foreclosures are difficult for everyone, but no one forced the buyer to take the loan in the first place - and while it may be understandable when they walk away from a property that has decreased in value below the mortgage amount, or when a borrower has to lose a home because they lost their job, or were ill, many people retain their pride and leave the properties clean and secure so they are not the type of danger presented here. Someone who just closes the door and walks away is just ignoring their responsibility to the area they lived in- and that's not any lender's fault.
It does rain from time to time, you know, even in Southern California. (It's been one of the wettest summers on record this year.) A drained pool won't stay empty.
#4, where I live (Phoenix), we had a forclosed house next door to us. We called the city and they sent people out who did indeed put larvae eating fish in the pool. They also posted signs on the house instructing neighbors not to attempt to treat the pool as that would potentially counteract the effect of the fish. There's no issue with elevated chlorine as it burns off within a few days of abandonment. With no one tending to the pool, no new chlorine is introduced. So far the fish have been working perfectly.
#5: covers break or are dislodged, and rain refills concrete basins pretty easily - even half an inch of rain in a nice shady spot would be a gift to the mosquitoes, and the cover would help prevent the sun from evaporating the water again, or cooking off the larvae.
I live in Canada in an area prone to pretty extreme weather (my mother had a hole knocked in her roof by a wind-thrown potted geranium last year, never mind the amazing effects of UV light, snow and ice on everything) but even in California you can't be immune to the elements. If nothing else, UV light is going to perish covers eventually, wildlife could dislodge or damage it, and everywhere gets wind on occasion.
These homes are not being maintained by their current owners (the lenders) or their previous owners (who no longer have any particular responsibility to the property). As you get damage to the houses by time and neglect, sagging roofs, filled eves-troughs and gutters, and shifting patio stones will provide more puddles and ponds for mosquitos, even in pool-less neighborhoods.
The pools being left filled is just the blatant kickstart of things.
Not just mosquito's. The kids are playing with the chemicals in the garage and making a bloody mess.
I had to oversee a cleanup 2 years ago where kids had poured 20 gallons of gasoline and some hazardous solvents into an abandoned pool.
It does rain from time to time, you know, even in Southern California. (It's been one of the wettest summers on record this year.)
Speak for yourself. We've had 3.6 inches of rain in the last 12 months.
I saw things like this coming years ago...
I mean, people were going into the housing bubble with every nickel they could beg, borrow, steal while the ashes from the "Dot.Com" boom had barely begun to cool. Saying it was based around "Real Estate" was like saying Tulipmania was based around "Real Flowers"...
The real crime was that used to be agricultural land. Land used to produce food for people. But, because the "Big Ag" companies get "Tax Breaks and Subsidies" and can fly a tomato from halfway around the world and sell at a tax-created profit for half what Judd the Farmer can make it for in RL, it is cheaper to remove the farm and set up hastily constructed junk houses to sell to suckers willing to sign grotesque loans...
coming from Florida
you cannot just drain a pool and cover it
doing so you may come back to that pool and found that it has popped out of the ground and has now slammed itself into the house
@13
Are you sayin' you've have zombie pools in Florida??
love that movie!
I wrote a review of it:
http://blog.beliefnet.com/onecity/2009/08/american-casino-movie---real-estate-crisis-mortgage-crise-interdependence-crisis.html
I wish I had known about the larvae-eating fish!
I don't really know a lot about how pools are built, but isn't there usually a drain at the bottom that goes to the sewer? Why not just open this up and leave it alone? Even if there is no drain I think it would be fairly simple to set up a siphon with a garden hose.
I've always thought that a really good solution to all of this is to set up a system where the bank who now owns the foreclosed property lets someone live in it rent free or rent reduced with the stipulation that that person or persons must maintain the property, keep it in showing condition, and be prepared to move out whenever the bank sells it. I believe they have something similar in some parts of Europe where squatting is a problem.
I don't really know a lot about how pools are built, but isn't there usually a drain at the bottom that goes to the sewer? Why not just open this up and leave it alone?
Groundwater pressure can force the pool out of the ground if it's not weighted down by being full of water. It's not normally a problem in California, but in some states it is.
Just fill 'em with closed-cell (hydrophobic) foam and problem solved!
um, foam floats on groundwater too.
Also, no, I'd say most pools are NOT connected to a sewer, not in my experience.
Punch holes in the bottom and fill them in with nice cheap dirt, and thus raise the property values of neighboring pool owners' properties by creating a lack AND reduce water use in one civic move.
ah gawds, head cold.
i think they used to put a little diesel oil in standing water to kill the larvae, back in the day.
I can't believe nobody has brought this up yet, but...
Does this mean foreclosures lead to bot fly infestations?
@1 I'll finish the connection... Dirty Jobs covered mosquitos...which was hosted by Mike Rowe...who also narrated a TV Series...also called...wait for it...American Casino. Coincidence??
@18- Except that someone with that tenuous a claim on the house ("Sorry, sold it-- get out by the end of the month, please") isn't your ideal person to maintain it and keep it in showing condition. And you'd have to check to make sure they were. And if they're slack, you have to chuck 'em out onto the street, possibly with kids in tow?
Sort of like how no one washes a rented car...
Wait, you mean after we've drained the ephemeral wetlands to build subdivisions, the ephemeral ponds have come back in the absence of people? Shock!
Cheapest solution is to accelerate the ecological succession process...mosquito larvae, fish, frogs, ducks & other water fowl.
Cultivated and improved lands returning to a state of undeveloped desolation?
IMHO, the US is in some ways more like the ancient Roman Empire every day.
I only hope there's a proportional rise in bat population.
@NUMIKE
The earth vomiting forth swimming pools and other travesties perpetrated. So, how do you chain down fuel tanks so they don't rise like subterranean whales to breach the surface and go rolling down the street?
In Western Australia we have Pygmy Perch which have become incredibly resilient (but also small - 2cm) due to evolutionary pressures/genetic narrowing. They can live in mud more or less and water temps don't really impact them. They eat mosquito larvae and other stuff. Their eggs live thru harsh conditions and hatch when rain comes.