You sure sound like a real nice person marti.

Easy for you to say. Actually, I am a nice person, but these people are something else. If you had to live near them, you might be wondering how long before your neighborhood could get back to normal too.

Marti -- I know what you're saying, I've had bad neighbors like that too. But to answer your question, I think it varies widely. The house two doors down was foreclosed on after 6 months of no payments. Proceedings were started after 3 payments were missed, but it took an additional 3 months for the people to be "evicted". In the middle of the night a UHaul truck pulled up and the owners emptied the house and the next day the sheriff was breaking down the door to gain access. My next door neighbor knew all the details and shared them with everyone. The owners of that home were not "bad" people, they just fell on hard times and had mortgaged the home to the hilt.

I'm sure foreclosure processes vary by state and even lender.

Thanks cordovamom. I thought it might be something like that. My next door neighbor (who lives closer to them than I do) thought they might be evicted any day but I told her it would probably take a few months.

I wish I could say these are good people who just got over their heads, but they are moochers and slobs who have been a pain in the caboose since the day they moved in. They were delinquent on their rent when they bought this house, and left that place and all of their belongings when they moved here - thinking that no one would know where to find them. They are always talking about unfairly they have been treated by the government, the school system, etc and how they get even by cheating the system.

I'm tired of hearing them fighting, and cleaning up their mess when it blows across my yard. They have made no effort to be good neighbors and when any of us have gone to them with a complaint about their blowing trash or their loose dogs, we are verbally attacked by them. I have lost track of how many times the sheriff's car has been there, and how many times there is a utility truck there reconnecting their utilities that were turned off for nonpayment. They refuse to sign up for trash pickup and stack their trash bags behind the garage until their dogs get into it & spread it all over the yard. There is probably a six month pile of trash bags out there now, and now we all have a rat problem.

You have to sign up for pick-up? How weird!

Even after foreclosure, many banks won't even evict residents. 'Squatting' is a huge problem in many areas that can go on many months. I hope you get lucky and the people leave soon...

We're not in the city, so have to have our own trash service.

Some of the banks are simply sitting on their hands on foreclosures.

Once the foreclosure occurs the value of the note for the house must be marked down.

The owner of the note is relying on its value as an asset (like a bank) they now have to increase their reserves based on the decrease in value of the note.

By simply waiting they can continue to carry the note at the higher value.

Add to this the banks are overloaded trying to dispose of the foreclosed properties.

The neighbors might be around for 6, 12, or even 18 more months (or longer).

It really depends on several factors. The bank, the number of foreclosures in the area, the lawyers involved, even where in the process they are.

I would not let the trash issue go unreported. It's a health and safety risk and should be reported to the health department and your local code enforcement officer.

Oh brickeyee, I hope it doesn't go on that long. We want to sell our house and it would help a lot if that place was cleaned up before we put ours on the market.

Carol, the sheriff's department has been out several times about the trash, and has probably even written citations. Doesn't seem to do any good. I keep thinking the county will come clean it up like they do overgrown properties, but they haven't. At least not yet.

Don't bother with the Sheriff's department, call the health department and keep calling, till something is done. Get your neighbors to call and complain too. The more they hear from unhappy neighbors the better your chances of getting it cleaned up. Do not forget to mention you've seen rats going in and out of the area.
If your neighbors aren't continually reported the authorities will believe the citations took care of the problem. Only you and your neighbors can let them know it hasn't changed!
If you still get no action take some pics and then call the local tv station. Get them to run the story. There's nothing like a little bit of press to get folks to step up.

It also depends on whether it is FHA, VA or if the people are on welfare etc. I might quietly talk to the neighbors to report them, but as to making a huge fuss, calling TV etc, that could be dangerous to you. Could turn nasty and threats could turn into realities. take care.
But you might quietly find out where the mortgage is held, and quietly take pictues and send them to the mortgage co, to show the destruction etc. If there are rats, yes, contact the health dept. good luck

Hate to hear it, marti8a. It is tough living in the county with no strict enforcement & crappy neighbors. There is a free dump week coming up the first week of May - not that they would bother...... but if anyone is on civil terms with them, maybe they could hint? Your "neighbors" sound too unreasonable, selfish & unmotivated to actually do it though. The info will be posted soon on the county website.

Good to know - for me, guvnah. I never think to look at the website. We took a big load last time. The only reason I don't think they would do it is because I can't see them even touching those bags after all this time. I sure wouldn't touch them. But the neighbors on one side of them (the only ones who talk to them that I know of) can't stand the trash and I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't offer to help them move it out just to get it away from their house.

We go every time they have one, too. DH always has some stuff. :) They are changing it up this year - you have to get a voucher from your commissioner's office (they said this would be easy) & then you can go to one of three landfills in the county for the whole week for free, no limit on how much you can take either & there's no worry about dumpsters filling up!

That's good. Last time it said that the location would open at 8 and stay open until all the dumpsters were full. We were there at 8 and there was a long line. It looked like they were almost full by the time we left.

I think there may be good news. With all the trees down, there have been a lot of people in our neighborhood hauling off limbs, and they were parked over there today. Crossing fingers they will load the trash as well as the tree limbs.