The empty house, in a middle-class corner of southern California, is two storeys high and boasts a three-car garage. Roses bloom around a kidney-shaped swimming pool, which is green with algae. Bill Bobbin, a county inspector, dips a ladle into the water and brings up half a dozen wriggling larvae. Mosquitoes, and the West Nile virus that some of them carry, are thriving in California's plunging property market.rnWest Nile virus arrived in America in 1999 and made it to California three years later. Since then it is known to have infected 2,300 people in the state, of whom 76 have died. In Orange County this is the worst summer yet. By this point last year officials there had discovered nine birds that had been killed by West Nile virus and not one infected mosquito. So far this year they have found 219 infected birds and 75 infected mosquitoes.
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