In Abandoned Homes, The Remnants of a Life

During a lull four years later, his grandmother paid him $1,000 to clean out her basement. A neighbor soon called for the same service. Other calls followed, and he made $3,000 in two weeks. Realizing there was a niche to be filled, Paxton started Clutter Cleaner with a Web site proclaiming: "There's nothing we won't clean."

Last August, a mortgage servicing company found the site and was soon giving Paxton five or six jobs a week in the Washington area. Business grew through the winter, but Paxton realized that having crews drive up from Richmond every day was costing too much in gas. So he and his fiancee moved to Falls Church in March, and he hired four workers he found on Craigslist. He has been busy ever since.

The work has changed how Paxton views the foreclosure crisis.

"I used to just think it was stupid people and people who didn't matter," he said. But his crews often find people still living in the homes, mostly renters who haven't been told the property has been repossessed.

"Especially in Prince William, we were getting a lot of families," he said. "We'd get there and there'd be six or seven hardworking families in a house and they'd say, 'What do you mean? We don't know anything about this.' "

More recently, Paxton's crews have cleaned houses that he says are so nice that he wouldn't mind moving in.

As good as business is now -- Paxton expects to bill more than $1 million this year -- he said it won't make him rich. He spends more than $1,000 a week on gas, plus wages and supplies, and he says he knows the work won't last forever. He said he expects the number of foreclosure-related clean-outs in Prince William to peak in December and decline next year.

He said he's pondering his next move.

"Somebody is going to find a way to buy a lot of these properties and manage them in a cost-effective manner," he said. "Because the same hardworking families who are getting booted from these houses are still going to be working hard and are still going to be looking for a place to live."

There is opportunity in change, Paxton said. He just has to figure out what his next one is.