Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl led a motorcade of police and reporters to a house in Larimer yesterday with a clear-cut plan: to start suing landlords and seizing houses that are frequent crime scenes.

	Bob Donaldson, Post-Gazette Pittsburgh police stand watch yesterday as Mayor Luke Ravenstahl holds a news conference in front of a house at 6432 Shetland Ave. in Pittsburgh's Larimer neighborhood to announce the city will file suit against the owner for failing to remedy the property's long-standing record of criminal activity. Click photo for larger image.

The issue of neighborhood decline turned out to be more complex than imagined, though, as neighbors went to bat for the house, and its owner, Peabody High School Assistant Principal Mary Pat Ware, pleaded poverty and ignorance.

The scene was on Shetland Avenue, a run-down, graffiti-strewn stretch of road a few blocks from a planned revitalization effort on Meadow Street. According to the city, occupants of the house have been shot, implicated in possession of marijuana and 314 stamp bags of heroin and arrested for firearms violations.

The Wares are not the occupants, according to Allegheny County records.

Mr. Ravenstahl said a rarely utilized 1992 state law allows the city to sue the owners of properties that are the frequent scenes of police and ambulance calls, the discharge of firearms, drug seizures, arrests, housing or health code violations, or trash heaps.

A judge can then seize any rent payments, fine the owner $500 to $10,000, allow the city to seal the property at the owner's expense, and order the owner to clean it up or install video cameras for use in law enforcement.

A big fine could lead to placing a lien on the property, which the city could use to take control of the property and sell it.

The law was successfully used in Montgomery County last year, according to newspaper reports.

The lawsuit will be the first in a citywide campaign to "crack down on properties like the one behind us that has a history, a very long history, of drug-related activity," Mr. Ravenstahl said, standing in front of the partly boarded-up house with a sign on a door advertising a barbershop.

"It's a commitment that we've made since the beginning of my administration ... to crack down on nuisance properties and drug-related properties."

If the city can seize the property in court, it may tear it down, he said. If successful in this case, it will do the same to homes on what the city is calling the Top 10 Most Wanted Properties list, and then continue from there.

The city did not release the addresses of other targeted properties.

"I can name 100 [properties] in council District 9 that should be on the most-wanted list and are in areas that are slated for development," said Councilwoman Twanda Carlisle, who represents the neighborhood.

City Council President Doug Shields said he has been pushing for use of the law for a decade, since he was an aide to then-Councilman Bob O'Connor, who died as mayor Sept. 1.

Suing is "something that we felt was appropriate to try to set an example, to show people throughout the city that we mean business," Mr. Ravenstahl said. "We can't redevelop and invest in communities when there are properties like the one behind me that are continual problems."

Ms. Ware, who inherited the house from her parents, said nobody has lived legally in it in a decade, though it has been broken into repeatedly.

"We go, we board it up," she said. "Next thing we know, we hear from someone, we board it up again."

She said she has been getting voice mail messages at her home from the city asking what she's going to do about the Shetland Avenue house and has left "seven to 10 voice mails" in an effort to answer. She has never succeeded in connecting with the city, she said.

The mayor's office said the city sent her several letters, including one by certified mail and another by hand delivery.

Ms. Ware said she has been trying to get the house demolished.

"I don't have $10,000 to give someone to have it torn down," she said.

She is also late in paying her Allegheny County, city and school district taxes on the property. She earns $91,900 a year from the Pittsburgh Public Schools.

Several neighbors had no complaints about the house. They said no one lives there, but someone operates a candy and soda shop inside.

"People, they just be chillin' there," said Omari Thompson, an 18-year-old security guard who lives nearby. "A cop drives by, sees them outside, and then they go inside, and [the police] think something's wrong."

Larimer community activist and council candidate Ora Lee Carroll, though, said there's "more than candy going out of there. ... I view that property as blatantly blighted and it needs to be [demolished]."