The Palm Beach Post traveled with deputies who serve foreclosure notices on homeowners. Often the owners leave behind an unimaginable mess:
The tidy-looking beige house on Bridge Street has a filthy secret.
Behind its hibiscus hedges and the window with the cross on its sill, greasy pink makeup is smeared on the foyer floor.
Food is rotting on the kitchen counters, sand clogs the bathtub drains and the detritus of junk drawers and trash cans is everywhere. ...
By the time (
St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Mary Lou Nickel's) division
comes knocking, some homeowners have lived in the homes for months without making payments. When the clock finally runs out, they get 48 hours' notice before a deputy arrives to make sure they're gone.
The ousted owners often are angry at the bank, and occasionally they seek revenge.
"A lot of people, when they find out they're losing their house, they just lose it," says Michael Page, whose company was hired to clean the Bridge Street home. "I mean, I've walked into houses with feces everywhere."
His Port St. Lucie business, Brother Mike's Property Maintenance, used to handle household repairs. But regular homeowners aren't hiring handymen much in this economy.
So Page has found himself in the foreclosure-cleanup business, subcontracting for some of the banks that are facing thousands of loan defaults in Port St. Lucie.
