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E-mail StoryRoaches, rats and spiders party in vacant homes, too
| Wednesday, May 14 2008 10:47 AM
Last Updated: Thursday, May 15 2008 8:01 AM
The houses look clean from the outside.
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But the insides of Bakersfield’s foreclosures can be filthy and trash-strewn, a perfect playground for pests.
“They’re just thoroughly infested with roaches, with rats, with black widows,” said Jared McCaa, who owns Bakersfield’s TMC Pest Management. About one-third of the bank-owned homes he’s hired to treat have serious pest problems, McCaa said.
Other local pest fighters were less certain their foreclosure calls had picked up, but exterminators and real estate agents said empty houses easily become insect and rodent hot spots.
“We have some (occupants) who leave the house a mess and pests just gravitate toward it,” said real estate agent Fabiola Delgadillo. Many repossessed houses sit vacant for months before banks dispatch a real estate agent to prep them for sale.
“By the time Realtors are able to go in ... it’s not very pretty,” she said.
German roaches, the common indoor variety, can multiply quickly in an abandoned house, said Jim Ester, a district manager for Antimite Pest Control.
Pest problems in Bakersfield usually kick up about now and last through the first frost, Clark Pest Control spokesman Mike Weeks said.
New homes roofed with tiles can be particularly vulnerable to rat invasions, Weeks said. Rats can romp beneath raised tiles and scurry inside through openings surrounding vent pipes.
“The rats find that and down into the attic they go,” he said.
Field mice and ants are the most common scourge of vacant homes, Weeks said.
Ironically, neighbors can be affected when someone finally shows up to clean the neglected lawn of a vacant eyesore.
Dead leaves and organic matter feed the outside variety of roaches, said Frank Daigle, pest manager for Banks Pest Control Inc.
“They try to clean the yard up, the roaches take off through the entire neighborhood,” Daigle said.
McCaa recalled one Oildale job where neighbors came out upon his arrival, furious that pests from a foreclosed home were migrating into their yards and houses.
“They chewed my ear for the better part of five minutes,” he said.