As building inspectors made a sweep of property conditions in Central and South Oakland yesterday, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl and University of Pittsburgh officials reviewed some of the successes of previous sweeps and said the program would soon expand to other neighborhoods.

Standing in front of three notorious properties on McKee Place, where buildings were closed for safety violations, Mr. Ravenstahl said there are "more cooperative and good landlords than bad ones," but the bad ones "need to know we are not going to accept substandard housing, and we're going to enforce the code."

By the end of the work day, inspectors had written tickets for more than 140 violations, the majority for exterior property maintenance, a few for rusted and deteriorated fire escapes, insufficient railings and absent smoke detectors.

The city will conduct another sweep next month before the start of the fall semester and, ahead of that, sweeps in other neighborhoods. Calls to the mayor's 311 non-emergency complaint line have implicated property owners in Allentown, Larimer and California-Kirkbride, all due for sweeps within the next two weeks, he said.

Two buildings on McKee Place were ordered evacuated for safety violations in May. Yesterday, a crowd that included University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Mark Nordenberg and a few residents approached the multi-unit buildings from the back, along Semple Street, where a Dumpster was filled with rolls of carpeting. They gathered looking up at the fire escapes between 311, owned by Jason Cohen, and 337, owned by Hosny Sayed Abdel Latif and Ybashir Mohamed.

"This is the before and after," said senior building inspector Robert McPherson.

Today, Mr. Cohen's building is ready for tenants, with just a few small repairs left, said Dan Cipriani, the chief of the Bureau of Building Inspection. The other remains in violation, as does the one beside it -- 343, owned by Atallah Khalil -- on which fines for violations are being appealed.

Mr. McPherson said citations at Mr. Cohen's building included the absence of smoke detectors and emergency lighting and holes in the fire escape.

"There were fire doors, but they were not maintained," he said. "Now there are new fire doors and escape windows. The fire escape stairs have been reconditioned."

In May, District Judge Gene Ricciardi issued Mr. Cohen a $200,000 fine for violations at another of his properties and granted him six weeks to upgrade 331 McKee Place. He fined Mr. Khalil, who owns the third building in the notorious row of three on McKee Place, $260,000 for safety violations that had become part of his record in August 2006.

"That's up for appeal in October," said Mr. McPherson, adding, "Some parents have moved their children out."

Longtime Oakland property owner Florence Schwartz yesterday told the mayor: "The talk around here is that you're making progress here. I think that $460,000 scared some of them."

Her father-in-law founded Oakland Real Estate Co. in the 1920s and it has been in the family since, she said.

"Oakland is the first impression a lot of people have of Pittsburgh -- parents who bring their children to school here, people who come with patients to the hospitals," she said. "It may be the only impression they have."

She joined the tour yesterday, she said, "because I care what that impression is."

This is the third year of the Oakland code sweep, and Nathan Hart, president of the Oakland Community Council, said each year it has improved conditions. "The first year it found a whole bunch of code problems and these have been resolved."

The second year, he said, more resolutions. "There's still a lot to be done, but these are making a difference."

Joanna Doven, a spokeswoman for the mayor, said Mr. Ravenstahl will order sweeps through neighborhoods where he knows of serious property issues. Since the recent attention in Oakland, she said, "we have seen the number of Oakland residents calling in building problems to 311 quadruple."