Pool Problems Popping Up

Abandoned backyard swimming pools, filed up from the recent heavy rainfalls, are massive breeding grounds for mosquitoes.

So are backyard swimming pools that fill up with stagnant water because the homeowner won't either maintain or drain and cover the pool.

The second situation was brought to the Highlands County commissioners Tuesday by code enforcement officers who said the case, involving a woman homeowner at 901 Citroen Drive, is far from unique in this county.

April Hartseil and Beverly Singley, both county code enforcement officers, asked the commissioners to place a lien of $1,020 on the home at 901 Citroen Drive, a residential side street off Thunderbird Road, because the woman who owns the house refuses to maintain or fill up or cover her backyard swimming pool.

Both code officers said the woman refuses to talk with them, refuses to answer code violation notices posted on her property, and refuses to return phone calls from them.

Singley said the woman has been seen taking down a code violation notice posted on her home and then ripping it up.

Both code officers told commissioners letting a swimming pool fill up with water that becomes stagnant poses health problems, safety problems, cleanliness problems and, potentially the most dangerous, mosquito-breeding problems.

With the recent heavy rainfalls creating pooled water everywhere, mosquitoes, and the threat of West Nile Virus, could become a major issue in the future.

Solutions to the problem of swimming pools being abandoned or not maintained include filling the pool with sand and/or putting a tarp over it to keep out rain and ground water, Hartseil said.

County workers have done that to swimming pools at houses that have become vacant because they were marijuana grow houses, and the people who used to live in them are in jail or gone from the county, Hartseil said.

When a homeowner refuses to maintain a swimming pool, as is the case at 901 Citroen Drive, Hartseil said, code enforcement officers "don't have a lot of options" to solve the problem.

Filing a $1,020 lien against the property was the only possible action in this case.

But, the county can't enforce the lien or take other steps because the homeowner in question has a Homestead Exemption, Ross Macbeth, the county attorney, told commissioners

The Homestead Exemption not only gives her a reduced property tax bill, but also protects her home in other ways, Macbeth said.

The Homestead Exemption makes this house "a protected asset," and so the county can not recover any money spent to solve the swimming pool problem at the house, Macbeth said.

"In the public's eye, they don't think we're doing our job" to solve the problem, Hartseil said.

Commissioner Barbara Stewart said the bottom-line problem is: How can a government force a homeowner to correct a code violation if that homeowner can't afford to do that?

Stewart asked county Administrator Mike Wright to come up with a solution to this problem, which pops up occasionally in residential areas around the county.

"We're not the only government in Florida that struggles with this problem," Wright said.

Commissioners Stewart, Andy Jackson and Guy Maxcy voted unanimously to put the lien on the woman's home. Commissioners Don Bates and Edgar Stokes were absent from Tuesday's county commission meeting.