Vacant, Foreclosed Northern Virginia Homes A Boon For Local "Animal Kingdom"; As Weather Warms Up, "Opportunistic Wildlife" Get "Rocking & Rolling"

In Northern Virginia, The Washington Post reports:

• [I]t was a pastoral scene Carl Berry could do without. He lives two doors down from the [foreclosed] house, which he said was abandoned about six weeks ago by a family that used to keep the property tidy. Now there's a real estate agent's lockbox on the door, rain-sopped newspapers in the driveway and, until repeated complaints brought it down, uncut grass so unruly it was attracting other occupants. Such as rats. [...] He and his wife have seen snakes in the reedy thicket, too.

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• As more people move out, the grass grows taller, the water puddles up and the wild things move in. Mosquitoes thrive in the empty swimming pools and junk piles that have been filled and refilled by the recent rains. Ticks flourish in the tall grass. So do rodents, which also like the shelter of dry, empty houses and whatever garbage they might contain. Then come the snakes, with the rest of the animal kingdom not far behind.

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• "Anything that is not maintained creates a potential attraction for a lot of opportunistic wildlife," said Scott McCombe, general manager for Critter Control of Northern Virginia, an animal-removal agency that specializes in nonlethal methods. "And this is typically the season when things start to get rocking and rolling."

For more, see Shuttered Homes, Thriving Wildlife. neighborhood destruction from foreclosures kappa