He owned the house adjoining mine in Germantown.

After he ripped off his wife's cash, sold his kids' toys and drove the family out, there were periods when he was gone for months. The deteriorating house was occupied by a series of squatters, some of whom brought cockroaches and pit bulls.

Plant boxes disappeared from neighbors' porches (and mine) and homes were broken into (including mine).

It was a nightmare that went on for years. By the time the place finally was sold, it had no working bathrooms or heater, and the roof had a hole so big that I let myself in after storms to empty buckets of rainwater.

During this time, the city Revenue Department made no effort to take the property to sheriff's sale despite years of unpaid real-estate taxes and water bills. The Department of Licenses and Inspections responded to neighbors' calls mostly by issuing polite violation notices for the owner to ignore.

I've never written about this before because the story is so unremarkable.

Nuisance properties are common in Philadelphia neighborhoods, and at the Daily News we regularly get calls from people frustrated that their pleas to L&I never lead to any real action.

Maybe they need to get the occupants of the offending property to circulate petitions that irritate the police.

Last Friday, four 20somethings living in an aging property on Ridge Avenue in Francisville were rousted from their home and detained for more than 12 hours while police turned their place upside down and then locked them out.

The first police official I spoke with said that it was a case of an abandoned store being taken over by "an anti-police group." The department spokesman later said that police were investigating a tip that the occupants had something to do with spray-painting over a nearby police-surveillance camera.

We know that some of the residents had circulated petitions questioning surveillance cameras and raising issues about a police beating captured on video tape.

And we know that the cops arrived and entered without a search warrant, after residents wouldn't cooperate. And we know that the police called L&I.

And this is what bothers me.

The department that's too understaffed, or too indifferent, or too hamstrung by legal restrictions to deal forcefully with so many nuisance properties came down on these four young people like a ton of bricks.

Not one inspector, but three.

More than 20 code violations, including the operation of "a multifamily dwelling," because the four residents are friends and not relatives.

And calling it a multifamily dwelling meant that L&I could nail them for not having an alarm system, which wouldn't be required if just two of the four were brother and sister.

And of course, there was the decision to lock the place up while the four were being held at a police station without charges.

Property owners are often cited with code violations and ordered to address them, but shuttering a property is a drastic step, taken only in cases in which there is imminent danger to the occupants.

On Monday, I asked city officials for copies of the violation notices and an explanation for what happened. It took until Wednesday to get the violations, and I finally spoke with Deputy L&I Commissioner Eileen Jones yesterday.

She noted that many of the reported violations present hazards, such as a floor/ceiling assembly that's partially collapsed, and a wall with missing brickwork, described in the notice as being in danger of collapse.

But she also confirmed what I'd heard from another official - that the decision to padlock the place and shut the residents out was made not by safety inspectors, but by the police.

I can't say that the place on Ridge isn't too dangerous to live in. And over the years I've met a lot of dedicated L&I employees who believe in their mission and work hard to protect people and improve communities.

But let's call this episode what it is: A case in which L&I was a tool in bringing the full weight of city government down on four people whose political views were distasteful.

I hope L&I thinks twice next time. *