Enterprise is a Skateboarder
The sub-prime mortgage debacle in the United States which began the avalanche of financial failures with worthless paper scattered throughout the international community of interrelated money markets has proven to be a dreadful scourge. Real estate marketers, construction companies, banks, all bought into the scheme of enticing people with scant financial means to believe they could be home-owners, thanks in part to government-sponsored programs determined to persuade a non-secure population they could buy into the American dream.
The U.S. market is now flooded with failed mortgages, people walking away from homes that they could only afford to dream of, never afford to pay for to begin with, leaving in their wake unsecured loans, and banks re-possessing homes they cannot sell in a critically depressed market. Neighbourhoods have been effectively gutted of their home-owners, and houses sit, one after another, empty, forlorn, and decaying. Subject to break-ins, and to having electrical, plumbing, fixtures spirited away, leaving empty, destroyed shells.
And in some parts of the country, where backyard swimming pools are seen as an essential part of home ownership, those pools are also neglected and turning into a different type of problem to municipalities. In California alone tens of thousands of backyard swimming pools with their houses fronting them, have been abandoned, with the suburbs' bubble having gone bust. There are fines of up to $1,000 a day for pools left with standing water, but sheer numbers mitigate against success.
The pools, full of fetid water, represent a happily-uninterrupted breeding ground for mosquitoes, and with the threat of West Nile disease, the fall-out from this neglect becomes even more serious. Mosquito-abatement programs in various counties see the necessity for personnel to take to the skies to identify abandoned homes and pools. Once identified, workers treat the pools with insecticide and mosquitofish - tiny carp that thrive on mosquito larvae - a natural ecosystem.
Pools are not emptied, however, for to do so is to invite another kind of problem altogether. After a heavy rain event - of which there must be fairly few in California - empty pools have been seen to be lifted by groundwater out of their placements, floating up to a foot or two. Even people who somehow manage to pay their mortgages, find it expedient to shut off power in the newly-tight economy, or to stop operating the pool motor, or pay for water treatment chemicals.
Enter the intrepid, imaginative and enterprising skateboarders. They scope out abandoned homes and their pools, and initiate a process of purpose-recovery bearing no resemblance to the original function of all those abandoned pools. Kidney shaped pools are preferred, but any will do nicely, in fact. They bring in pool pumps, drain water into the street gutter - cleverly setting up orange cones on sidewalks to give the procedure an official air - then shovel out the remaining muck.
And presto! The result is a magnificent skateboarding rink. Word has got around. It's become a really popular sport: abandoned pool = skateboard park; fun and games. Just imagine, an abandoned street of high-end homes, each with a pool, offering the opportunity to empty a series of pools, and the fun of a lifetime, heading down from the first on to the following pools for entertainment par excellence.
Real estate tracking sites such as realquest.com and realtor.com lists foreclosed houses with pools. Satellite images from Google Earth are also helpful. And there's a Web site, skateandannoy.com which is replete with skater tips about how to go about discovering and draining abandoned pools. A poster at one site reads: "God bless Greenspan, patron saint of pool skatin'." Does life get any better than this?
These pleasure-tingling opportunities beckon to hard-core skateboarders from abroad as well, bringing people from as far as Germany and Australia to the United States to bunk up with skating pals, so they can all embark on the mission to create these skate parks, out of abandoned pools. A different kind of holiday adventure altogether, and one supremely enticing to people dedicated to skateboarding.
After all, what's worse, an abandoned pool full of algae, dead leaves, stinking up the neighbourhood, bringing rats and other nuisances, or a useful playground? Of course there are spoilers in this little scheme of skateboard Paradise. Despite skaters' adherence to their rules of honourable conduct - no graffiti, trash left behind, nor intent to enter the abandoned houses - they do on occasion get caught by law and order authorities.
Police hand out warnings, but as yet no citations. In fact, the skateboarders should be cited favourably for their advanced civic awareness in cleaning up messes and emptying nasty pools of stagnant water.
We're so sour-faced and our values are just so incredibly skewed.
The U.S. market is now flooded with failed mortgages, people walking away from homes that they could only afford to dream of, never afford to pay for to begin with, leaving in their wake unsecured loans, and banks re-possessing homes they cannot sell in a critically depressed market. Neighbourhoods have been effectively gutted of their home-owners, and houses sit, one after another, empty, forlorn, and decaying. Subject to break-ins, and to having electrical, plumbing, fixtures spirited away, leaving empty, destroyed shells.
And in some parts of the country, where backyard swimming pools are seen as an essential part of home ownership, those pools are also neglected and turning into a different type of problem to municipalities. In California alone tens of thousands of backyard swimming pools with their houses fronting them, have been abandoned, with the suburbs' bubble having gone bust. There are fines of up to $1,000 a day for pools left with standing water, but sheer numbers mitigate against success.
The pools, full of fetid water, represent a happily-uninterrupted breeding ground for mosquitoes, and with the threat of West Nile disease, the fall-out from this neglect becomes even more serious. Mosquito-abatement programs in various counties see the necessity for personnel to take to the skies to identify abandoned homes and pools. Once identified, workers treat the pools with insecticide and mosquitofish - tiny carp that thrive on mosquito larvae - a natural ecosystem.
Pools are not emptied, however, for to do so is to invite another kind of problem altogether. After a heavy rain event - of which there must be fairly few in California - empty pools have been seen to be lifted by groundwater out of their placements, floating up to a foot or two. Even people who somehow manage to pay their mortgages, find it expedient to shut off power in the newly-tight economy, or to stop operating the pool motor, or pay for water treatment chemicals.
Enter the intrepid, imaginative and enterprising skateboarders. They scope out abandoned homes and their pools, and initiate a process of purpose-recovery bearing no resemblance to the original function of all those abandoned pools. Kidney shaped pools are preferred, but any will do nicely, in fact. They bring in pool pumps, drain water into the street gutter - cleverly setting up orange cones on sidewalks to give the procedure an official air - then shovel out the remaining muck.
And presto! The result is a magnificent skateboarding rink. Word has got around. It's become a really popular sport: abandoned pool = skateboard park; fun and games. Just imagine, an abandoned street of high-end homes, each with a pool, offering the opportunity to empty a series of pools, and the fun of a lifetime, heading down from the first on to the following pools for entertainment par excellence.
Real estate tracking sites such as realquest.com and realtor.com lists foreclosed houses with pools. Satellite images from Google Earth are also helpful. And there's a Web site, skateandannoy.com which is replete with skater tips about how to go about discovering and draining abandoned pools. A poster at one site reads: "God bless Greenspan, patron saint of pool skatin'." Does life get any better than this?
These pleasure-tingling opportunities beckon to hard-core skateboarders from abroad as well, bringing people from as far as Germany and Australia to the United States to bunk up with skating pals, so they can all embark on the mission to create these skate parks, out of abandoned pools. A different kind of holiday adventure altogether, and one supremely enticing to people dedicated to skateboarding.
After all, what's worse, an abandoned pool full of algae, dead leaves, stinking up the neighbourhood, bringing rats and other nuisances, or a useful playground? Of course there are spoilers in this little scheme of skateboard Paradise. Despite skaters' adherence to their rules of honourable conduct - no graffiti, trash left behind, nor intent to enter the abandoned houses - they do on occasion get caught by law and order authorities.
Police hand out warnings, but as yet no citations. In fact, the skateboarders should be cited favourably for their advanced civic awareness in cleaning up messes and emptying nasty pools of stagnant water.
We're so sour-faced and our values are just so incredibly skewed.
Labels: Environment, Human Relations, Whoops
posted by Pieface @ 5:45 PM
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