Can't Pay Your Mortgage? Trash Your House

Hello, pals of Morphizm. I stepped into a hornet's nest with my new AlterNet piece about the housing crisis and the rise of arson, fraud and trashouts. It's already getting heavy traffic and impassioned comments, so by all means check in and join the discussion. Because it's a serious doozy:

Can't Pay Your Mortgage? Trash Your House and Leave
[Scott Thill, AlterNet]
On the lookout for disturbing trends? Here's one for your pile: According to a recent article in Fortune, there has been a noticeable increase in not just fraud but arson that has kept pace with the housing depression. Professionals in the insurance and lending industry are bracing themselves for all manner of similar situations, as homeowners either trash, or simply leave their trash lying around their houses, often taking off without even claiming their furniture. This is already a dirty problem in the housing business, with owners, lenders and banks having to figure out a way to stick each other with the check when tenants destroy their property on their way out the door. Woe is the person left behind to clean up the chaos.

"We just estimated a trashout yesterday where we're going to have to drain the pool," one Fontana, CA resident posted on AgentsOnline.Net, a resource and idea site for realtors, "and the stench from it when you enter the backyard is overwhelming. Then, of course there are mosquitoes all over the top and it's been sitting so long without chemicals that it's green on top and murky black on the bottom. We've already had to refuse one pool because of its really creepy condition and I'm not so sure about this one either. [I] just hope we don't find the previous homeowner at the bottom when we drain it"... MORE @ ALTERNET