Bill Wade, Post-Gazette
	Mayor Bob O'Connor, right, talks to Alexis Britton, 8, who lives on Spring Garden Avenue, where the mayor had Pittsburgh Public Works crews board up abandoned houses. Pittsburgh Police Chief Dominic J. Costa is in the background.

It would take a wrecking ball to do justice to the cluster of tumbledown homes at the end of the 1000 block of Spring Garden Avenue, in the neighborhood of the same name.

His demolition budget overtaxed, Pittsburgh Mayor Bob O'Connor did the next best thing yesterday, personally screwing particleboard to doors and windows and launching a month-long push to board up hazardous houses.

"We just went out and bought $6,000 worth of wood and materials," he said, a 14.4-volt DeWalt cordless drill, with a Phillips head bit, close at hand. "We'll hit the whole city. I believe in a month, we'll have them all boarded up."

His plan is to send five crews across the city, boarding up a total of 30 or more abandoned homes a day. The city will slap decals on the boards warning that anyone found in the structures will be prosecuted.

"This is huge for us," said Jeff Dzamko, president of the Spring Garden Neighborhood Council, as he stood in front of 1052 Spring Garden Ave., one of a string of three abandoned homes that were wide open until yesterday. "In the last several weeks, we've had people in and out of these properties every night."

Likely not for tea tastings.

"A lot of drug addicts, crackheads are in here," said the mayor. "The neighbors have been telling us about it."

"We found some needles in one," said Mr. Dzamko.

When drug users and squatters light fires, the result can resemble the fire last Thursday on Manion Way in Lawrenceville that started in abandoned rowhouses and engulfed five structures.

"Twenty percent of our fires in 2005 were in vacant buildings," said city Fire Chief Michael Huss.

"A fire, and this whole block goes," said Mr. Dzamko.

There are 1,200 condemned buildings in the city, but the demolition budget includes only enough money to tear down 300 this year. Some of the rest are secured by locked doors or boards.

"There's probably a couple hundred out there," said Public Works Director Guy Costa, in which "the doors are unlocked, the windows broken."

Last year, there were just three city workers assigned to ensuring that abandoned houses were boarded up. Mr. Costa said he now has 15 workers, in five crews, slapping up boards citywide.

The crews can board not just city-owned, but also privately owned buildings that appear to be hazards, said Bureau of Building Inspection Chief Ron Graziano.

Police Chief Dominic J. Costa said he remembered one of the houses boarded up yesterday from his days on the beat.

"That house in particular had a beautiful front," he said. "Every holiday there were decorations in front. ... It's a shame what happened to it."