The Big Duh!

From Business Week, we have Foreclosure's Filthy Aftermath.

The article even comes with pictures. (Do not miss this!!!)

The mortgage mess is getting even messier. Literally.

Malnourished and flea-ridden animals, feces-covered floors and urine-soaked furniture, piles of rotting garbage, swarms of diseased mosquitoes—these are the horrors that may await the ill-fated sheriff, property inspector, Realtor, or passerby making that first visit to a deserted home.

"They know they are going to lose their house, so they have no pride of ownership anymore," Mitchell says. "They'll leave the water on so there's flooding and mold everywhere, they'll tear the chandelier or the ceiling fan out of the ceiling, kick the doors and walls in. Then the critters start taking over—ants, scorpions, and Black Widow spiders."

Sometimes, frustrated homeowners get creative. A man in Eagle Creek, Ore., recently put three 200-pound pigs in his repossessed home. They quickly tore up the place, ripping away the foundation and reducing the back porch to rubble. When police found the pigs, the animals were unharmed, if a little cranky.

In the month of May alone, authorities found 23 abandoned animals in a house in Lake Carmel, N.Y.; three pigs trapped in an Oregon home; 20 birds in a Lorain (Ohio) house; 24 horses on a Bixby (Okla.) property; and more than 60 cats in a home in Cincinnati.

Well, like DUHHHHHHHH!

In the last housing collapse of the early 90's people stuffed cheap fish between the walls, and under the flooring, stinking up the place. The dominant response was, "let the freakin' bank deal with that."

And so it was, and so it will be again...