When Bob Steele, owner of Passport Realty in Mount Vernon, heads out to deliver a foreclosure notice, he always takes along a can of mace and a nightstick. He says you can’t be too careful.

He has arrived at properties and found homes burned, faucets running, dead animals in the living room, toilets ripped out, cockroaches so thick they’re falling out of doorways and dog feces in every room. The tenant’s standard of living or a spiteful action? You never can tell, he said.

“For the most part, these people are living a hard life,” Steele said. “Damage is not necessarily a common trend, but it is repetitive. A solid 10 percent of homes I deal with are damaged.”

And there can be the occasional surprise.

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Steele, who has been in the foreclosure business for 13 years, walked into a foreclosed home in Cherry Hill a few years ago, and a drug addict, who did not reside in the home, removed a syringe from his arm and chased Steele with it.

Rob Kaetzel, of the Real Estate Professionals in Baltimore, said property damage is becoming more common.

“Many people have fixed up the property [at their expense], and then want to take their [additions] with them,” Kaetzel said. “We typically see holes in the walls — things like that, but we don’t normally see all-out maliciousness. Occasionally, we see graffiti saying, ‘You’re not getting my house.’”

David McIvaine Sr. of Keller Williams Realty in Ellicott City, has seen copper wire ripped from homes and gas and power lines cut, but he added that most of the time foreclosed homes are left in reasonable condition.

“The real question is whether someone is taking personal property or whether it is part of the household,” McIvaine said. “Not-affixed chattel [movable articles] is personal property. Affixed chattel is part of the real estate.”

Increasingly, larger-income neighborhoods have become more susceptible to foreclosure.

Barbara Purdue, of the Real Estate Professionals, said she doesn’t see damage to nicer homes in the counties as a trend, but it is something that does occasionally occur.

“Two houses — one in Belcamp and one in Reisterstown — recently had their kitchen sinks missing,” said Purdue. “And I had a woman who refused to part with her chandeliers.

“Every once in a while, you do have a lot of destruction — busted walls, broken doors and basements that have been completely ruined. People get angry. You’re taking their dream away, and the reality sets in that they have failed. And that comes with a lot of depression and despair. Buying a home is the American dream, and when you lose it, it does something to your psyche.”

Purdue said that 90 percent of the homes being foreclosed have payments due that are more than the market value of the house. “The bank has to consider whether it is cost-effective to repaint the house,” she said, “while there are 100 other houses to deal with.”

For the month of May, Maryland ranked 22nd in the nation with 2,351 foreclosures, according to Realtytrac.com. That’s up 33 percent from 2007.

anthony.fair@baltimoreexaminer.com