TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Fort Myers' 1-Man Team Tends To Broken Dreams

ADVERTISEMENT

The New York Times

Published: September 29, 2008

FORT MYERS - The lawn mower's whine disrupts the morning peace of Coconut Drive like an alarm clock no one remembers setting. It rises and falls and rises again, as the angry machine cuts across the front-lawn jungle of an attractive house with great location and move-in potential.

Abandoned, in other words. Three years ago, sold for $660,000; today, a ghostly parcel of failure.

The lawn mower returns the grass to short uniformity, then growls toward the backyard, passing a two-car garage housing forsaken gardening tools, a basketball hoop no longer conjuring jump-shot dreams, and a door leading to a kitchen with a granite-counter island. Now it begins to clear around an in-ground pool brimming with viscous green water.

The man operating the mower is not a landscaper making his weekly visit, but a city employee trying to stem the blight caused by a boom in property foreclosures. His name is Shayne Becher, and just two hours into his shift the 90-degree mugginess has saturated his city-issue cotton shirt. But that's how it is here in Fort Myers, in this season of rain and recession.

Becher works for the code enforcement division's rapid response team, which tries to keep up with an ever-growing list of abandoned properties needing to be mowed and boarded-up. He is the team's foreman and its only member; his partner recently accepted the buyout the city was offering to reduce its budget.

So Becher mows and hammers and sweats from 7 a.m. until 3:30 in the afternoon, five days a week, sometimes with help, sometimes not. He may be unable to reverse the plummeting national economy, but at least when he's done, these deserted houses have a curbside appeal that neither offends neighbors nor attracts criminals.

With perspiration beading at the tip of his nose, Becher uses a blower to clean the sidewalk and driveway, then piles fallen coconuts and other debris at the curb for public works to collect. Before climbing into his truck, he pauses to assess his handiwork at what was once someone's dream house.

"Beautiful," he says. Then he drives a few blocks to another site of abandonment, on Sunset Place.

Come to Fort Myers, population 60,000, the seat of Lee County. Walk the Gulf Coast beaches. Cruise the Caloosahatchee River. Witness what happens when banks dole out easy mortgages and homeowners forget the money isn't free. Drive down Cleveland Avenue or McGregor Boulevard, turn left or right, and see the empty houses, the overgrown lots, the signs saying "AUCTION" and "FREE RENT."

Celebrate the fact that, according to RealtyTrac listings, the Fort Myers-Cape Coral area no longer leads the country in foreclosure rates; that is so ... July. In August the area ranked sixth, with one in every 66 housing units getting notice of an auction, repossession or loan default.

One of the fallouts is wholesale abandonment. Michael Titmuss, a former Fort Myers police officer who became the city's manager of code enforcement seven years ago, is seeing new and disturbing trends in the city he loves. Failing condominium associations. Criminals renting deserted buildings they do not own to unsuspecting tenants. More and more no-shows at code enforcement hearings.

"They're desperate," Titmuss said. "They feel hopeless, and they don't know where to turn. They're good people in a bad position. They perceive themselves as unable to comply, as being surrounded by a pack of wolves."

He didn't finish the thought because these days some things are understood: The homeowners walk away, leaving their properties to banks as unwanted parting gifts for having provided risky loans in the first place.

Here in Fort Myers, the code requires that grass be no higher than 12 inches. Otherwise, neighbors complain about property values, rats and snakes gain sanctuary, and criminals find easy cover.

If a lawn isn't mowed, a process kicks in. The city mails a courtesy postcard, saying: Time to mow your lawn, neighbor. After that it sends the rapid-response team - that is, Becher - to mow. Then it bills the homeowner for the service, though these bills often become liens on property that no one wants and banks are not eager to reclaim.

In July, the city mailed at least 600 courtesy cards - more than three times the number sent out the previous July. Still, codes must be enforced; lawns must be mowed. In hiring Becher several months ago, Titmuss passed on strange reassurance: "We will train you. And oh, by the way, we've never seen what you're about to deal with."

Becher, 39, is like a lot of people here: He's from someplace else. He moved a year ago from the small central Michigan city of Greenville, where he was a public works foreman. But his first marriage failed, his patience with small-town nosiness ran out, and his side business as a builder came to what he calls "a screeching halt." Just like the Michigan economy.

Now here he is, driving a Ford pickup to Sunset Place, pulling a gasoline-perfumed trailer that contains two riding mowers, three chain saws, five weed whackers, two hedge clippers and a toolbox. He also has two jugs of water, a ham and cheese sandwich and a pages-long list of properties that need to be mowed or boarded up.

He pulls up beside a small, one-story house. City records include a photograph of this house taken in December 2005 that depicts a white convertible and a black dog in the driveway; today the house is a shell, with gaping holes where air conditioners have been yanked out, probably for scrap.

Becher sets down a foot-high traffic cone beside the knee-high grass, takes a "before" photograph to document the violation. He mounts his mower and gets to work.

In the hours to come, Becher will mow two more lots. He will pass sign after sign saying FREE RENT. He will board up several buildings, including one house containing little more than auction brochures, and another, directly across from a public library, containing the detritus of a crack den. He will meet up with a code-enforcement officer, Ron Giddings, who will ask him: "Can you cut 4040 Rainbow tomorrow? It's next to a day care center, and she's complaining about rats and snakes."

But now he is immersed in tidying the messiness of failed plans. He finishes mowing, takes a photograph of a job well done, and closes the chain-link fence as though the property were his own.

"Another day in paradise," he says, standing on this street called Sunset.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT