Leaving the House and Pool Behind

Posted by: Monica Gagnier on July 08

I arrived back home in Beacon, N.Y., on July 6 to find the house two doors down abandoned. The swing set and the above-ground pool are still in the backyard, but there are no curtains in the windows.

My husband, who arrived a week earlier, knew something was wrong when the neighbors, whom I’ll call the Warwicks, didn’t have their annual Fourth of July backyard barbecue this year. He asked around, but no one seems to know what happened to the Warwicks.

The Warwicks had a slew of kids and loved to entertain. They were shrewd enough to invite their neighbors to their backyard parties, minimizing the likelihood of the cops being called if things got too rowdy.

Still, some people weren’t very happy when the Warwicks put in a pool two years ago that took up nearly their entire backyard. When the kids did cannonballs, water would splash into a neighbor’s yard (not mine).

Now, that pool is filled with foul water. I heard from my neighbor Juanita (not her real name) that someone tried to come empty it, but she protested because the water would have flooded her yard.

One theory about the Warwicks is that they "gave the house back to the bank." It's not out of the realm of possibility, given how much property values have declined in our Hudson Valley town.

We bought at the height of the market in August 2005, and our latest property assessment shows a value that is $30,000 less than we paid for our house. It's not the first time I've been "upside down." It happened to me in Queens, N.Y., in 1989 and to my family in Albuquerque, N.M., in 1975.

Both properties recovered their value and then some, but I wasn't around to reap the benefits. Staying put is not my strong suit. However, when it comes to real estate, sticking it out is usually the best strategy. But maybe the Warwicks didn't have that option.

Would you walk out on your house?