Hope, action, perplexity.

Mayor Ravenstahl has unveiled a budget that will expand on Mayor O'Connor's initiative to "redd up" the city. By providing a dedicated "redd-up" crew with occasional assistance from other employees in the Department of Public Works, it will increase the number of staff available to deal with things such as vacant houses and abandoned cars. In addition, it provides for automating the process of issuing citations for building code violations.

This should be good news for Homewood, and particularly for my block, which still has too many vacant properties, although some have changed hands over the past year.

The house two doors down from me, that I wanted to buy when it was listed for sale at $5,900, sold on April 6 for $3,000 to a company in New York, then was sold again on May 2 for $7,900 to an individual in Maryland.

You may recall that when I learned that I missed the opportunity to buy it, I said that I hoped the new owner would be a good neighbor. Well, not so far. Perhaps he/she had every intention of cleaning and fixing the house and renting it out to good tenants or reselling it for a profit, and their best-laid plans went awry. I don't know all that; I know only that, with foliage taller than a man, the house is still empty, except when vandals or squatters enter at will.

Since that is not only ugly, but dangerous, I wrote a letter to the owner on behalf of myself and several neighbors, who also signed it, informing the new owner(s) of the situation and asking him/her/them to inform us what they plan to do about it. If there's no reply, or at least none that's satisfactory, I suppose the next step is to visit or call the Bureau of Building Inspection.

Further down the block is a house with a sign in the window saying that it is available from the Veterans Administration. But the VA sold it on Sept. 16, 2005, for $4,500, apparently to a lady in England who used a Delaware corporation to buy it (I haven't decided whether the name, "Snowqueen," displays arrogance, or just a sense of humor). Again, I don't know the intent, but the house has remained empty for more than a year now, and has become a favored hangout for young people who can't think of anything to do but hang out.

After going around and around with the questions, "Why would someone in England buy a house on my block in Homewood, and then not do anything with it? Why would someone in England buy a house in Homewood, period?" I called Robert R. Lavelle, lifelong Pittsburgher, longtime real estate broker and banker (Lavelle Real Estate Inc., Dwelling House Savings and Loan), and personal friend. Initially, he expressed perplexity, but finally he offered the possibility that the owner, while living in England, isn't British -- that she may have a Pittsburgh connection, that she may even be from Homewood.

If not, he suggested, the purchase may be part of a gentrification process, which includes not only buyers who fix up properties, but those who simply sit on them, speculating.

I think I'll stop speculating, and simply drop Ms. Snowqueen a line.