Dream Home or Nightmare?
by John Occhi, Hemet REALTOR
Mission Grove Realty
Working with a lot of Short Sale and REO properties there is always the risk of a health hazard when entering a vacant home for the first time. You just never know what you might find.
Have you ever opened a refrigerator in July after the electricity has been turned off for a week? How about if it was stocked with opened dairy products? Maybe a few meat products? Some decaying vegetation of some sort? Not to mention all the fuzzy green and white stuff that seems to be growing everywhere...?
If you ever have the opportunity, I hope you are wearing sandals; otherwise it will probably knock your socks off.
Not All Health Hazards are Booby Traps
Unfortunately, many leaving the home under less than ideal circumstances will resort to certain booby traps that can really get very nasty.
One of the biggest problems that neighborhoods face when homes are abandoned is the pool. It becomes a breeding ground for mosquitoes and the Nile virus and other deadly diseases can easily be introduced
Is this Your Dream Home?
Imagine moving onto a quite residential street where your neighbor across the street has a magnificently manicured lawn and 20 palm trees outlining the property. It is beautiful and you are so proud to be in such a wonderful neighborhood full of beautiful homes.
Then one day, you watch your neighbors move - using a rental truck. They don't have a crew that brought in your furnishings. No, there are several people helping out, but they really don't look very organized. They are getting rowdier and rowdier as the day moves on and more cases of beer arrive. You find it strange, since there is no real estate sign in the yard...but you never got to know them, so you don't give it much of a thought, other than you home the new neighbors will be nice and have kids to play with yours.
A couple of weeks go by and the lawn is getting a bit overgrown and the weeds are popping through the planters. You still don't think much, after all its only been a couple of weeks, right?
The weeks slip into a month and you notice the lawn is really looking overgrown. It now has it's own weed problem and turning brown, after all it has been a hot dry summer. You figure out that no one has been watering, since even the palm trees are losing their luster and turning brown at the tips of each palm.
One month turns into two. You hear the kids telling ghost stories and you are now really concerned. There is now no chance in the world that the lawn or the pretty flowers in the planters will ever come back and those palms look like they could go up in a blaze if so much as a loose burning cigarette butt found it's way near them.
Living in the desert, you never thought mosquitoes would be a problem. It turns out the haunted house has a haunted pool in the back yard that looks like the Irish Beer you drank last St. Patrick's Day - only much worse.
The fruit from the trees along the side yard have become over ripe and fallen to the ground creating a mess and attracting all sorts of bugs and vermin.
You wonder if this once beautiful home will ever sell and be restored to its former glory. Then the long awaited real estate sign goes up and you are hopeful. But nothing happens - other than another house down the block is about half way through the same cycle - you wonder if maybe that lawn could be saved. You ask yourself, "Why did I ever move to this dumpy neighborhood?" as you swat away the buzzing mosquito and watch the large blackbirds sitting on the fence across the way - and now you wonder what died in there.
The truth is the house has died and it is taking the neighborhood with it.
I hope this never happens in your neighborhood - but chances are it already has.
Now Have a Blessed Day,
John Occhi, Hemet CA REALTOR
Hemet CA Real Estate
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