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The house, abandoned and then hit by a fire in November, had for years been a worry to the block. Squatters, neighbors said, sought shelter in the house at 1420, while seven children living next door played out front.
Jackie Cheeseboro, 55, said that for at least two years before the fire, she and neighbors had complained to the city's Department of Licenses and Inspections.
Nothing happened, she said.
Finally, late last week, nine months after the fire, L&I began demolition.
Dangerous, vacant homes have long been a challenge to Philadelphia.
In 2001, the city - led by L&I - conducted its first thorough survey of vacant properties and concluded that there were 26,000 empty homes. The Street administration, through its Neighborhood Transformation Initiative, decided to go after 14,000 of the most dangerous ones.
Over five years, NTI demolished fewer than half of them. And with questions about how NTI acquired properties, Mayor Nutter in May halted the program.
Today, city officials estimate that there are between 20,000 to 25,000 vacant homes.
On Monday, a new L&I commissioner took office. Nutter has said Frances Burns, a former deputy commissioner of L&I, would do a "top-to-bottom" review of the department, which is responsible for inspecting properties in the city.
Meanwhile, frustrated residents continue to complain to police, L&I, and City Council members about dangerous, abandoned properties, many of them used by squatters and drug dealers.
A building at 17th Street and Susquehanna Avenue in North Philadelphia, for instance, gapes open, missing an entire side wall. Neighbors and passersby say it has been like that for more than a year.
"You could throw a body in there and you wouldn't find it," said Alan Hundley, 48, a 22-year resident of an apartment across the street.
"We want them to tear the rest of the building down or make it so it isn't an eyesore. Drug dealers can go in there and smoke. People bring there trash there. . . . It's dangerous for kids."
At a vacant property at 1536 W. Tioga St. in North Philadelphia's Tioga section, a fire three weeks ago severely damaged three other homes and left 12 people homeless. The cause: "an open flame from drug activity," according to city fire officials.
Block captain Peggy Ann Sprewell, 60, said neighbors had complained to L&I and police for years about the home.
"We complained to everybody. There were 15 squatters living at the same time in that house," said Sprewell, whose house was spared but smells of smoke.
"I can't afford an air conditioner, but these squatters had one. They had TVs, refrigerators, stealing electricity. They were living it up."
Records show that 14 calls about the property were made to police since May 2007. The calls were logged as "burglary in progress" and "investigate premises."
According to L&I files, a complaint about the house was received in January 2006 and an inspection made, said Maura Kennedy, Nutter's deputy press secretary. From then until July 28, the day of the fire, no complaints were received, she said.
For homeowner Mia Sowers, 42, and her husband and two children, the fire hit hard, particularly because they did not have insurance. Their house, badly damaged, could be repaired if they had the money, she said.
"I called the police two weeks before the fire, but they just took a report. I told them the squatters were there," Sowers said, who is living at the Red Cross House in West Philadelphia.
"You might as well not call, because they don't come," said Ted Evans, 70, who lives on the 1500 block of West Tioga Street, across from two other vacant properties.
Sgt. Ray Evers, a Police Department spokesman, said calls from the neighborhood were frequent. Records indicate that police received nearly 1,000 calls in the last four years from a house a few doors down from the squatters' dwelling.
"Officers will tell police radio to call L&I to have the place resealed, but we're not here to board up places, so now it's incumbent on L&I to board it up," Evers said.
To improve coordination between city agencies about complaints, Nutter has proposed a 311 phone system, which would allow residents to call a single number to make complaints. City phone operators would give callers a ticket number, enabling citizens and the city to track the complaint.
Deputy Commissioner Eileen Evans said L&I must "triage" the properties that need attention.
"It's a dynamic number. You make the efforts to treat the worst of the worst, and you start over again next year."
In 2007, the agency, with a $30 million budget, received 66,854 calls, she said.
Ed Schwartz, who runs Phillyneighborhoods.org, an online network that helps people get their concerns addressed by city agencies such as L&I, said a review of the department and the city's policy toward vacancies was long overdue.
"L&I has not been examined with this kind of scrutiny, and it needs to be, because no matter what anybody there does, they are playing triage constantly."
Councilman Darrell L. Clarke, who represents much of North Philadelphia, called L&I "the most underfunded agency" in the city, given its "responsibility related to safety and security."
"I don't think they have the necessary resources to do their job adequately," he said.
On a video, neighbors of abandoned homes voice their frustration: http://go.philly.com/vacanthomes
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