Foreclosed Petaluma home an unwelcome neighbor

Phyllis Sharrow is tired of the waist-high weeds, the empty beer bottles and the Jack-in-the-Box wrappers accumulating at the vacant, foreclosed house next door.

She’s been contending with the mess for two years, despite endless phone calls to bank and city officials, demanding a cleanup.

So last week, Sharrow took matters into her own hands. She put up a protest sign in her own tidy Petaluma yard, criticizing Bank of America for accepting federal bailout money while refusing to fix a problem she said is damaging her property value.

It’s a futile gesture that probably won’t change things, but it offers some small measure of satisfaction, she said.

“I’m just so frustrated,” said Sharrow as she stooped over to pick up a piece of trash at the Madison Street house. “I try not to let it bother me. But it does. So this is my little protest.”

Derelict homes continue to plague Sonoma County as the real estate meltdown forces more turnover.

In the past 18 months, more than 3,800 homes in Sonoma County have been seized in foreclosure. Many of them remain vacant for extended periods.

Finding a new owner can be a lengthy process, requiring many months, if not years, to resolve. Properties can fall into disrepair or attract trespassers.

Local officials are frequently helpless to rectify problems. Contacting someone in authority can be vexing, especially when it is a large financial institution handling thousands of foreclosures.

Other times, ownership appears to be in flux and it’s unclear who has legal responsibility to perform upkeep or decide who can be in the house, law enforcement officials said.

“Trying to get ahold of a bank who has control of a property can be very difficult,” said Capt. Matt McCaffrey of the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department. “You’re dealing with a major corporation that has no local representation. And they are dealing with hundreds of thousands of cases.”

Complaints appear to be increasing. Santa Rosa police Sgt. Lisa Banayat said the department gets “a couple calls a week” about someone trespassing in a vacant home. The status of the home is not always known, she said.

“We have noticed an uptick in abandoned houses and problems related to that,” Banayat said.

Petaluma’s code enforcement officer, Joe Garcia, said he has noted an increase in reports in just in the past six weeks. He said the lack of rain has turned weeds brown and left homes in a layer of dust, creating fire hazards and obvious blight.

Garcia said he combs property records at the county recorder’s office to determine whom to call to warn of abatement proceedings. Some ownership information can be found on the Web site www.mers-servicerid.org, he said.

“It’s getting the attention of neighbors,” Garcia said. “Windows are dusty and weeds start growing between the cracks in the driveways. Then there are the green pools and the mosquitoes.”

Real estate agents often are the intermediary for neighbors and banks. Some admitted privately their own frustrations about working with banks, which they said have mixed track records when it comes to maintaining houses.

Karen Fleming, a foreclosure specialist for Keller Williams Realty in Santa Rosa, said all distressed properties should be posted with contact information for a responsible party.

So-called preservation companies are hired by banks to handle trespass issues and routine work, such as mowing lawns or fixing broken windows, she said.

Drawn-out evictions can be fast-tracked in a “cash-for-keys” deal offered by most banks, she said.

The red tape involved in getting repairs made on downtrodden homes can be significant, but ultimately banks have a vested interest in protecting their assets.

“I think there’s an effort being made to keep neighborhoods safe,” Fleming said.

Meanwhile, in Petaluma, Sharrow said she’s been getting the runaround.

She called a toll-free number posted on the house next door but someone told her nothing could be done because the bank hasn’t signed off on the maintenance contract. Two years ago, the problem was it wasn’t yet listed, she said.

Since then, the yellow and brown bungalow once owned by friends has become a refuge for squatters. Their cigarette smoke will waft over the fence at night and she picks up bits of trash in the front yard by day, she said.

A Bank of America spokeswoman didn’t return calls seeking comment.

“I’ve been calling B-of-A since May,” she said. “And nothing has happened.”