By Emily Devlin
The Sentinel & Enterprise
FITCHBURG, Mass. — Foreclosures aren’t just bad news for the economy, say local fire officials. They create potentially deadly hazards for neighbors, which banks and mortgage companies must take steps to prevent.
Both Leominster and Fitchburg fire departments have responded to emergencies at foreclosed houses within the last week.
On Dec. 18, a major gas leak was found at a vacant Sixth Street home, forcing firefighters to evacuate neighbors and barricade the street.
“It was dangerous and deadly, just as it sat,” Deputy Chief Alfred Kirouac said.
On Sunday night, Fitchburg firefighters extinguished a suspicious fire at a vacant Chestnut Street home, according to Chief Kevin Roy.
The frequency and severity of these dangerous incidents depends partially on mortgage holders, some of whom do a fine job of making sure foreclosed properties are safe, and others who aren’t as vigilant.
“A lot of it seems to depend on the city or town you’re in, the area of the city and town you’re in,” Kirouac said. “If the property is worth some dough, they’re going to take care of it, if it looks like a loser to them, they seem to cut their losses.”
Kirouac said the high price of copper has produced more break-ins in recent years. Thieves sell copper piping as scrap, and it’s easier to steal from a home that doesn’t have any occupants.
That’s what likely happened at the Sixth Street home. Leominster police suspect someone broke in to steal copper, and unknowingly cut open a steel gas pipe, which leaked into the house for days before an odor of gas was reported.
All the leak needed to become deadly was a source of ignition, such as a cigarette, Kirouac said.
Another case of copper-pipe theft occurred on Milk Street in Fitchburg last year, Roy said, leading to a severe gas leak and a high concentration of gas throughout the neighborhood.
Most don’t do it now, but Kirouac and Roy believe mortgage holders would be wise to turn of the gas when a property is foreclosed on.
“Who figures somebody’s going to come in and bust the gas pipes up? But it’s something they probably ought to give some consideration to in the future. People are going into these places and stripping them of copper,” Kirouac said.
Bill Green, senior vice president of Rollstone Bank & Trust in Fitchburg, said the company is dedicated to making foreclosed properties safe, using in-house staff to secure them and monitor them regularly.
“Our practice is winterize them this time of year. You check on them and make sure as best you can the house has its integrity,” Green said.
Employees make it a practice to swing by to check on foreclosed properties whenever they’re in the neighborhood.
According to Kevin Kiley, executive vice president of the Massachusetts Bankers Association, community banks tend to do a better job at maintaining foreclosed houses than larger, multistate banks.
“Clearly there’s a reputability risk. If a loan is by X, Y, or Z community bank, they have to be more sensitive to the community dynamic,” Kiley said.
Most Massachusetts bank-owned properties belong to the big banks, Kiley noted.
The association, a trade group representing about 200 banks across Massachusetts, recommends mortgage holders have a specific plan for managing a property, as soon as the owner goes into default on his mortgage payments. Hiring a management company to ensure a house is well-maintained is the best bet, Kiley said.
The Warren Group, a major publisher of real estate data for New England, released October foreclosure numbers for Massachusetts cities and towns last month, showing a year-over-year decrease in foreclosure petitions and deeds for the first time this year.
Warren Group CEO Timothy Warren Jr. said in a press release this could be attributed to Bank of America’s decision to suspend foreclosures in October in light of possible paperwork discrepancies, prompting other major banks to do the same.
Foreclosure petitions -- the first step a lender takes to foreclose on a property -- totaled 1,127 across Massachusetts, down 51 percent from 2,296 in October 2009. Fitchburg saw petitions drop from 23 in October 2009 to 11 in 2010, a 52 percent decrease, and petitions in Leominster declined 42 percent, from 19 to 11.
Roy said it seems mortgage companies are doing a better job lately at making properties secure. For example, the Chestnut Street home that caught fire Sunday was boarded up tightly to protect neighboring houses, according to state recommendations.
But the difficulty he’s had at making contact with owners when problems arise speaks to the disconnect that can exist between a community and its property owners. A mortgage company in Provo, Utah, owns the Chestnut Street home, Roy said.
“A lot of them, you dial the phone numbers you’ve got, and it’s very difficult. You keep getting recordings,” Roy said. “Sometimes five to eight people are involved. They’ve bought (properties) during the recession and now they’re sitting on them, so it is a problem.”
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