Jeff Tortorea and Brian Waterhouse are going through the tools of their trade fast: hammers, channel locks, screwdrivers. But the door to a small South Euclid home near the busy intersection of Cedar and Green Roads refuses to open.
MS: You trying to break in?
Jeff Tortorea: Essentially yeah, when people leave their house they don't usually leave the bank a key as they're leaving or being foreclosed on.
Tortorea and Waterhouse are part of a 7,000 member network of contractors around the country that Safeguard Property Management can call on to take of foreclosed properties. Safeguard's customers are some of the biggest names in banking: from Chase to Citi Financial, clients who want to make sure that when they end up with a home from a mortgage gone bad, that the property doesn't deteriorate or lead to lawsuits.
This is the first of three homes Waterhouse will break into, inspect and board up this day. Business is brisk as foreclosures in Cuyahoga County skyrocket. County officials say 16,000 homeowners could file for foreclosure this year, up from 3,500 a year in the mid 90s.
Brian Waterhouse: So usually I'll just do a quick walk through just to make sure there's no dead bodies or dead animals.
MS: The dead bodies part was a joke, right?
Brian Waterhouse: Uh, no. We haven't found one yet but they've been known to find a few.
The possibility of finding a corpse is only one job hazard. Vacant properties attract crime - activities that can wreck a home's value. Because lenders are often hundreds if not thousands of miles away, it can be almost impossible for their employees to protect these assets. Safeguard CEO Robert Klein says that's where his company comes in.
Robert Klein: The city wants to maintain the neighborhood, the property. Well our clients, the banks, they want to maintain their collateral as well. They don't want their properties to be worthless.
Maintaining these properties has been great business for Klein. He started with two people in 1990. He now employs 450 at his Brooklyn Heights headquarters. The Weatherhead School of Management says Safeguard is one of the region's fastest growing companies with over $100 million in sales. Klein says they offer a public service, taking care of nuisance homes for out of state lenders.
Robert Klein: We're not always the bad guys boarding up houses. We're there to protect the asset, protect the community, protect the neighborhood.
Occasionally though vacant homes end up in the headlines, usually thanks to crime. Klein says his contractors do the best they can with monthly and bimonthly visits to properties.
Robert Klein: There's thousands and thousands of vacant homes in our community, I can tell you for a fact, that are being maintained and monitored on a regular basis but we don't catch them all.
In South Euclid, contractor Jeff Tortorea methodically goes through the home, shutting off water, changing locks and searching for any chemicals that need to be removed. He says his job is a mixed blessing.
MS: Do you ever find this depressing?
Jeff Tortorea: When there's someone overseas giving it their all trying to spread freedom and liberty and we're thrashing through their house, that really hits home. Other times there's a realization that we're doing good work and the neighbors see us as heroes finally here to board up that pain in the ass house that's been the neighborhood eyesore.
Safeguard estimates their clients spent $80 million between January and November of 2006 to keep up properties across the country. That's a number the company says will grow as foreclosures continue to rise. I'm Mhari Saito, 90.3.