Of Mosquito's and Home Foreclosures

I was listening to the Audio Economist today at work and heard a story about the strangest connection.

With the mortgage crisis in America, one of the hardest hit area's is some of the richer parts of California, including large parts of Orange County. With so many Southern California homes having pools, once the former owners forclose on the mortgage and abandon the property, their pools are also left derelict. And ever since West Nile Virus arrived on the West Coast of America in 2003, shallow, slow-moving pools have been the mosquitos carrying the virus' breeding ground of choice. In the past year, the number of deaths atrributed to West Nile in Southern California has risen sharply to 76 from only a handful: the number of avian deaths also continues to rise at a much higher rate than human deaths.

This has gotten to be a large enough issue that the California legislature has declared it the responsibility of the banks that seize derelict properties to tend to the pools while the property is being assessed for resale, specifically to fight the breeding of mosquitos which may be carrying the virus.

At least SoCal bank tellers can add another job to their C.V.: pool boys...

The full print article can be accessed here.