High cost of zombie houses

Maintaining abandoned, neglected, crumbling homes is a time-consuming and costly business for Long Island municipalities.

A yearlong Newsday analysis found that towns and villages across Long Island last year spent at least $3.2 million to clean, board up and demolish thousands of neglected homes. Most of the blighted properties are what have become known as “zombie houses” — homes that are being foreclosed on by financial institutions and the owner has walked away.

Town and village workers try to track down the financial institutions involved and then push them to tend to the properties. Bank representatives, however, say that without holding title to the property, they are limited in what they can do.

Mobile users, click the link above to explore the costs of taking care of zombie houses.

This interactive is part of a five-day series. Find it here.