MURRIETA -- Mark McKinzie is fed up with the foreclosures on his block.

Last week, he took aim at the banks that own the properties, and said he hopes his neighbors will help.

Reeling from a historic glut of foreclosures -- there have been 15,000 in Southwest Riverside County since January 2007 -- banks have been slow to kick out defaulted homeowners and resell the properties.

McKinzie hopes to shame banks into taking care of the foreclosed properties through lenderoffender.com, a Web site he launched last week.

The site chronicles poorly maintained properties and attaches a bank name to each one when possible.

Then, the banks with the most neglected properties are ranked.

McKinzie's frustrations began when the house next door became vacant in April 2007.

Since then, the lawn died and the yard was overrun by weeds so high that McKinzie said he took it upon himself to mow it.

The story behind the house has been a mystery; McKinzie has been unable to track down the lender and the house is not listed as a foreclosure.

"I work hard to keep my property looking nice," he said. "But now, when people come over, instead of saying, 'You have a nice home,' the first thing they say is, 'What's going on next door?' "

And it's not just the house next door.

McKinzie said that each time he drives down a block, he sees at least one foreclosure with the typical markings of blight -- brown lawn, trash, toppled signs from real estate agents.

One out of every nine homes in Murrieta has been foreclosed on by banks over the last two years, according to data from ForeclosureRadar and the U.S. Census.

On his Web site, McKinzie has added about 120 run-down foreclosures in his area and several from Florida with some help from friends.

McKinzie said he has already heard back from Wells Fargo, informing him that they will look into fixing up one of the properties listed on his site.

"We appreciate and share concerns about property preservation issues," Wells Fargo wrote in a statement regarding lenderoffender.com. "We hope to have someone out at the property … soon to try to resolve those issues."

He hopes that fellow concerned community members will latch onto the site and add neglected properties in their area.

There is no cost to post a property.

McKinzie said he is not hoping to profit from the site, which does carry several advertisements. He works a day job as a program manager for a computer company.

"I want to know I'm not the only one who feels like this," he said.

The site allows users to post a photo, a description and choose from several common ailments, from graffiti and broken windows to "black lawns," a term McKinzie has coined to describe lawns that have completely died.

Walking down his street, McKinzie points out a couple of foreclosures where the lawn is flat and crunchy.

"Brown lawn is too generous a term for this," he said.

Even more concerning than the aesthetics, he said, has been the broken windows and graffiti that has popped up, indications that the foreclosures have become an attraction for thieves and squatters.

At one foreclosure in his neighborhood, the side gate leading to the backyard was open.

Around back, a sliding glass door was smashed and the cabinets above the kitchen counter were missing.

Also, there were only a couple of cut pipes where an air conditioning unit once stood.

Such damage typically devalues the property, as buyers price in the cost of replacing furniture and rehabbing the lawn.

And in a market where average prices have already fallen by more than 35 percent, McKinzie said he is hoping to prod banks into taking care of the properties and preventing any further damage to his own property's value.

"When the market does turn around, this is going to sell for $20,000 less than it would have," he said. "And that becomes a comparable sale for my house. That's going to take me another year to recoup that equity."

Contact staff writer Zach Fox at (760) 740-5412 or zfox@nctimes.com. Read his blog, "On the Realside," at bizblogs.nctimes.com.