Property foreclosures do not usually conjure up images of
mosquito clouds carrying the West Nile virus, but for a handful of
Gilroyans who live near abandoned homes, the sour housing market
implies more than just tough economic times.
Property foreclosures do not usually conjure up images of mosquito clouds carrying the West Nile virus, but for a handful of Gilroyans who live near abandoned homes, the sour housing market implies more than just tough economic times.
Unattended pools can become breeding grounds for mosquitoes and watering holes for crows and other birds susceptible to the West Nile virus. As the summer season builds, this pathogenic recipe frightens residents such as Tony Weiler, a local elementary science teacher, who lives next door to a foreclosed home. The green, mosquito-ridden pool in the backyard is also the final resting place of a few rotting birds.
“My wife and I stay indoors now when sunset comes,” Weiler said outside his home on London Place last week. “I have no desire to get West Nile.”
Weiler first noticed the filthy pool next door after his wife complained of mosquito bites during dusk one day late in April. Curiosity led Weiler to peak over his backyard fence, whereupon he noticed the stagnant green pool his unknown neighbor left behind.
That’s when Weiler decided to call John Ballard.
As a vector control technician with the County of Santa Clara Department of Environmental Health, Ballard essentially cleans up after people who leave their pools to rot. He said he mostly relies on concerned residents such as Weiler to report problems throughout his county territory south of San Martin Avenue. For the past 30 years, Ballard has been keeping things clean, but he said whenever the housing market takes a dive, his workload increases.
“The last thing people are worried about when their house is foreclosed is the pool,” Ballard said. “They’re more worried about where they’re going to live next than draining their pool.”
Even if a resident obtains a draining permit and spends time to desiccate their swimming hole, rain water can always accumulate, Ballard said. Plus, an empty deep-end also poses safety issues for wandering children, according to Scott Barron, the city’s code enforcement officer who works with Ballard to inspect the 22 properties throughout Gilroy that have abandoned pools.
“We still have life safety issues whether a pool is empty or is filled and green,” Ballard said. Both men agreed that keeping pools clean is the best solution.
While foreclosures have added to Ballard’s workload, nasty pools also come from those who just don’t spend much time at the property or who simply forget about their pools after, say, the pump breaks. When a property is foreclosed, however, the problem is harder to manage because a usually distant bank cuts off electricity and water services to save every penny, which makes draining difficult, Ballard and Barron said. That’s why they prefer working with real estate agents who usually hire pool services to make properties more desirable.
When there is nobody to deal with, however, Ballard starts by spraying “larvicide” on the pool. The chemical solution acts as a seal that prevents mosquito larvae from piercing the water’s surface to get oxygen. After some larvae suffocate, Ballard deploys so-called “mosquito fish.” Gambusia affinis feed on the larvae and reproduce until there are none left. Afterward the fish feed on gnats, algae and sunken vegetation before cannibalizing each other until two remain, waiting for the next seasonal problem.
Ballard dropped about a dozen fish into the pool a few days after Weiler called him, but the fish were gone last week. In between his visits, a pool service “shocked” the pool with chlorine, killing Ballard’s fish. The only evidence was a request for payment stuck on the front door, along with other weathered notices, including Ballard’s first.
“That’s probably what happened to my fish,” Ballard said as he sprayed more larvicide. “As you can see, it’s already quieted down. This stuff works real good.” Ballard released about 20 more fish into the London Place pool Monday morning.
Since the housing market has tumbled, Ballard said he visits about six to seven sites a day throughout the Gilroy area and another four to five throughout the unincorporated county. While Barron said property owners permanently fix their pool problems within two or three months, he and Ballard have been monitoring fish at one Gilroy site for the past five years. The property owner still pays taxes, but rarely visits the site, they said, and the fish at that site do their job just fine, but the property owner has racked up a long list of fines, Barron said.
While the city imposes fines or places property liens on violators, Barron said he is more concerned with preventing a potential West Nile outbreak than punishing people.
“I wouldn’t say were relaxing our standards. We’re just trying to work the best we can with what we’ve got,” Barron said. “The most important is to keep the mosquito problem down, so we don’t have any cases of West Nile virus.”
Although officials rely on folks such as Weiler to report problems, vector control flew over the city two weeks ago, taking pictures of the residential landscape. They then laid the photos over maps to see if small greenish dots matched up with documented pool sites, which have allowed them to pinpoint abandoned pools that can fester into problems.
Officials were unable to provide an exact number of the hundreds of pools in Gilroy, but because mosquitoes have a flight range of up to one mile, Weiler said a few nasty pools here and there could affect the whole city. Gilroy is about 25 square miles.
So far this year there have been six reported, non-fatal cases of humans infected with the West Nile virus in Arizona, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas, according to U.S. Geological Survey. There have been 16 reports of dead birds infected with the virus, 14 of which occurred in California. While the majority were in southern California, one of the dead birds turned up in Santa Clara County, according to the USGS.
A bird must be tested about 24 hours after its death to see if it carried the West Nile virus. Ballard cautioned that the dead birds at the London Place pool could have perished by falling in, or just being young and dumb: “There’s just no way to tell now,” he said.
There is no evidence that a person can get the virus from handling live or dead infected birds, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And it is extremely rare for dogs and cats to become ill from infection; horses succumb to disease about 40 percent of the time after infection, almost always from mosquito bites, according to CDC figures.
There were 3,630 human infections reported across the country in 2007, 124 of which were fatal, according to the CDC. North Dakota, California, Texas and Colorado were among the states with the highest rate of infection. The county reported four non-fatal human infections last year; and of the 380 across the state, 21 were fatal.
By the numbers
â– 22 – Monitored pools in Gilroy
â– 14 – Days for for conceived larva to fly away as mosquito
â– 0.5 – 1 – Flight range of mosquito in miles
â– 25 – Area of GIlroy in miles
â– 14 – Number of infected birds found in California in 2008
â– 1 – Number of birds found in Santa Clara County in 2008
â– 380 – Number of human infections in California in 2007
â– 21 – Number of fatalities in California in 2007
Sources: City of Gilroy, Vector Control, CDC and USGS
