Sk8’ers find heaven in foreclosure

They say that in every cloud there is a silver lining and for skateboarders in California their silver lining are the pools at homes that are being foreclosed on. As more homes head into foreclosure and builders abandon have built projects people like 27 year-old skateboarder who goes by the name of Josh Peacock seek out these abandoned pools and turn them into a ‘boarder’s skate park.

New York Time’s reporter Jesse McKinley tells of how Mr. Peacock turns these potential cess pools into something that while illegal is still better than breeding grounds for insects and disease

In these boom times for skaters, Mr. Peacock travels with a gas-powered pump, five-gallon buckets, shovels and a push broom, risking trespassing charges in the pursuit of emptying forlorn pools and turning them into de facto skate parks.

“We can just hit them back to back,” said Mr. Peacock, who preferred to give his skateboarding name because of the illegality of his activities.

Skaters are coming to places like Fresno from as far as Germany and Australia. Mr. Peacock said his floor and couch were covered by sleeping bags of visiting skateboarders each weekend.

Source: New York Times

The availability of these backyard skate parks are so abundant that Mr. Peacock can’t keep up with them. It has reached the point that skaters are using real estate tracking site like realquest.com and realtor.com to find all the foreclosed homes with pools. This isn’t only happening in California either as the same activity is being reported in Florida, Arizona among other southern states.

[photo courtesy of Jim Wilson for The New York Times]