I live across the street from the Ugly Grey House. I've been in this neighborhood for 16 years. I work at home and see everything that goes on night and day.

Evicting people due to violations is a common legal strategy to get an owner of a dilapidated property to sell----sans rents, the owner can't pay for repairs and can't pay the fines and must sell or go bankrupt. The same thing is happening w/the houses next to the park on Wayne. In that case, the people ARE a problem.

But the people in the Ugly Grey House were very quiet. Most of them are low income immigrants. I've heard all sorts of rumors about drugs and illegal gambling going on. But I've never seen anything--no cars pulling up at all hours or anything. The people never bothered anybody. I have no doubt the house was unsafe, but this stuff does not happen overnight--like, due to the recent storms.

I think the people being thrown out was really sad--I sat and watched as people were loaded into vans w/minimal posessions. Some of the little kids were crying. I didn't think they were given any warning. Many of them didn't speak English.

Again, I have no trouble believing the house wasn't livable. But at the same time, this is an excuse for yuppies to get rid of something that hurst their property values. In fact, the neighborhood associations have been talking about getting rid of those people for years.

To a less noticable degree, the same thing has happened with some private homes that were purchased in the 1970s. While the owners take reasonable care of them, they are not beautifully renovated show pieces. In these cases, the Historic Society gets on their case and says things like plants are too close to the fence---do people in $1.5 million homes every hear that? They, they slap on fines and even liens hoping they will sell.

I don't want drug dealers around here. But do we have to all be yuppies? I like that there is diversity and hard-working people who just may not own the latest model car and cell phone.