MANATEE — A mounting crisis created by the record number of foreclosures in Manatee County has hit Jeannette Traylor right where she lives: An abandoned foreclosed home has brought blight, crime and fear into her neighborhood.
For Traylor, it is becoming harder and harder each day to remember what the home used to be: a quaint three-bedroom, two-bath house nestled in a Northwest Bradenton neighborhood filled with similar homes and families living the quiet life. But the home at 5504 Fourth Ave. NW now stands out.
And not in a good way.
On the outside, a side door that has been repeatedly ripped out has plywood covering broken windows; a wooden fence around the backyard sits on its side, leaving an exposed pool filled with black, filthy water.
Inside is worse.
A stench of mold and signs of intruders are everywhere, a realization that has Traylor both scared and angry that she is losing the neighborhood where she has lived for 13 years.
“This is Northwest Bradenton, would you ever think this could happen here?” she asks. “I mean, I raised my kids here.”
Traylor easily gains access into the foreclosed home through the busted side door and walks through the house. Beer cans, cigarette butts and dirt litter the rugs in every room. Since she was last inside three days ago, two pallets made up of sheets and pillows have appeared in two bedrooms, obvious signs that intruders have been sleeping there.
In one bedroom, a metal spoon sits on the floor next to spent packages of cold medicine, often used to make methamphetamine. In another bedroom, next to a pallet, a bag of marijuana lies on the carpet.
“Pretty deplorable, isn’t it?” Traylor said, shaking her head.
Deplorable, but common in a county where 6,390 homes were foreclosed on last year, compared with 592 in 2005, when the same home on Traylor’s block was purchased for $282,400. Once-valuable homes throughout the county are becoming headaches for neighbors, county officials and law enforcement alike.
No one knows exactly how many homes have been abandoned in Manatee County, but it is hard to find a neighborhood without at least one, according to Manatee County Housing Director John Barnott.
“They are everywhere,” Barnott said. “It is a problem in the best neighborhoods, and the worst. I have people walking away from million-dollar homes because they have lost everything.”
And when that happens, a vicious cycle ensues. Owners of homes disappear and become hard to find, and banks burdened with a landslide of foreclosures are increasingly taking little interest in the properties.
It makes for a situation ripe for vandalism and squatting, as well as a haven for teens to party, and drug addicts to get high.
Law’s hands are tied
There is little law enforcement can do when concerned homeowners call for help, unless an owner can be found and seeks to have the intruders trespassed from a particular site. But for properties that nobody cares about anymore, that can be tough, according to Manatee Sheriff Brad Steube.
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