Tens Of Thousands Of "Squatters" Swarm Into Vacant Foreclosed SW Florida Homes

In Cape Coral, Florida, The New York Times reports:

• In a county with one of the nation’s highest foreclosure rates, empty houses have attracted a new type of nonpaying tenant: bees. Tens of thousands of honeybees, building nests in garages, rafters, even furniture left behind. When a swarm came to the foreclosed ranch house at 3738 Santa Barbara Place in Cape Coral, town officials called B. Keith Councell, a fourth generation beekeeper and licensed bee remover.

• On a recent evening, Mr. Councell stood at the light blue house’s open garage door as hundreds of honeybees buzzed over his head and past his ears, disappearing into a hole behind the water meter. The house has been without a human occupant since December. Then he did what he does at most foreclosed homes: nothing. “If it’s in the yard I just take care of it,” Mr. Councell said. “But if it’s in the structure, usually I can’t get permission to go in. And it’s a problem, because somebody’s going to get stung. It creates a risk for everybody around.” [...] Last year, he said, he answered calls about bees in more than 100 vacant houses, and the volume was higher this year.

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• Mr. Councell said he noticed an increase in calls to vacant houses two years ago, and steadily more since then. “If that continues, then we’ve got a big problem,” he said. [...] When a house is vacant and in foreclosure, Mr. Councell, who rarely uses a computer, finds himself in a tangle of red tape, following trails of loan records to locate the owner, often an out-of-state lender, then a local managing agent. Generally, he said, even when he finds the necessary people, they do not let him on the property, either not wanting to spend the money or not wanting to risk the liability.

For more, see Floridian Is the One to Call When Bees Move In.

In a related story from Cape Coral, Florida, see NBC 2 News: 30,000 bees found in foreclosed home. neighborhood destruction from foreclosures zach