Contents of Foreclosed Homes Going to the Dump. Where are the Green Entrepreneurs?

‘Foreclosure Alley’: that’s the nickname of one area in Southern California that’s been so hard-hit by the mortgage crisis, there’s barely a home in the neighborhood that’s still occupied.  The beautiful valley filled with spacious homes with formerly sparkling pools and manicured lawns is now decaying.  So many homes have been foreclosed, the banks can’t clean them out fast enough.  So, they’re resorting to the cheapest way to empty the homes of their contents: hiring companies to haul it all away to the dump.

Check out this video from KCET SoCal Connected:

Shocking, isn’t it? Surely there’s a better way. Especially once you consider the fact that the vast majority of this stuff is perfectly good – better than the quality that most charities receive as donations for people in need.  It’s sickening to see giant trash bins full of clothing, bedding, televisions, brand new computers, cookware, toys, baby supplies and other valuable items being poured into a dump truck.  The company featured in the video ‘trashes out’ an average of 15 foreclosed homes a day.  That’s a lot of trash.  Apparently, they’ve tried to donate this ‘trash’ to charities, but the charities aren’t well-organized enough to get the stuff fast enough to please banks that are eager to keep things fast and cheap.

Max Gladwell speaks for a lot of us when he asks, “Where are the green entrepreneurs?”  This is a prime opportunity to step in and not only make a big profit, but get items to people in need AND prevent all of this stuff from crowding landfills.  It’s a win-win.

From Max Gladwell:

We envision an operation that rents cheap warehouse space in strategic locations near current and pending foreclosure areas. One would partner with the trash-out companies and hire teams of low-cost labor to work with them to identify and recover the most valuable items in a highly strategic manner. Much of it can be sold through eBay and Craig’s List. Other items can be Freecycled. As the operation scales and diversifies, one could take over for the trash-out companies and offer banks a green alternative. As the company gains momentum and scale, it could operate more cost-effectively than the non-green competitors because revenue would be generated at both ends, while also saving on the landfill fees.

Somebody jump on it!

Link [Max Gladwell]

Officials in California Filling Pools with Mosquito Fish

For months, there have been little mentions here and there about how officials all over the country are worried about mosquitoes breeding in the brackish pools behind abandoned, foreclosed homes. You would think that the standard response would be a) drain the freaking pools, b) put forth some kind of community effort to either get people back in the homes or c) drop some mosquito dunks in there. But, the brilliant officials in California have decided that mosquito-larvae-eating fish are the solution.

From Treehugger:

The mortgage crisis is not only wrecking peoples’ lives, it’s not doing much good for the environment, either. The swimming pools of abandoned homes are perfect mosquito breeding grounds, there are worries about rampant West Nile Virus infections. In California, authorities are using airplanes to find green pools and are filling them with the Gambusia affinis, or mosquito fish, which eats the larvae.

“They are real heroes,” says Josefa Cabada, a technician at the Contra Costa Mosquito & Vector Control District, a government agency, in the Wall Street Journal. “I’ve never seen a mosquito in a pool with mosquito fish.”

The problem (despite the obvious one of, uh, fish in swimming pools) is that these fish wreak havoc on each new ecosystem they’re placed in. They’ve displaced native species all over the world, and are apparently ‘master escape artists’, able to travel in as little as 3 millimeters of water.

Surely, there is a better solution than this – it sounds like a story in The Onion.

Link [Treehugger]
Photo credit: DAVID CARLSON / The Californian

The Suburbs Are Turning Into Crime Ridden, Cookie Cutter Hellish Barrens

Remember the scene in Back to the Future II when Marty stumbles around his alternatively universed crime ridden suburban neighborhood, which is filled with empty houses and gang warfare? That is quickly becoming the reality in a many suburbs as the subprime mortgage crisis ripples out. There are neighborhoods today were 61% of the houses are empty and in foreclosure.

Formally middle and upper class homes are being rented out to shady (poor) people and are falling apart thanks to the cheap-as-possible construction methods of most conventional home builders. Neighborhoods with homes that used to sell for upwards of half a million dollars are turning into run down crime hives.

The Atlantic has a great piece titled “The Next Slum“ that explores this growing problem and the urban flight from from the suburbs. Here’s a snip:

Arthur C. Nelson, director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech, has looked carefully at trends in American demographics, construction, house prices, and consumer preferences. In 2006, using recent consumer research, housing supply data, and population growth rates, he modeled future demand for various types of housing. The results were bracing: Nelson forecasts a likely surplus of 22 million large-lot homes (houses built on a sixth of an acre or more) by 2025—that’s roughly 40 percent of the large-lot homes in existence today.

For 60 years, Americans have pushed steadily into the suburbs, transforming the landscape and (until recently) leaving cities behind. But today the pendulum is swinging back toward urban living, and there are many reasons to believe this swing will continue. As it does, many low-density suburbs and McMansion subdivisions, including some that are lovely and affluent today, may become what inner cities became in the 1960s and ’70s—slums characterized by poverty, crime, and decay.

Link [The Atlantic]

Photo credit: Flickr user tlindenbaum, faux tilt shift added with Photoshop