Eyesore

Reincarnation is Kallu Khan's stock in trade. His workshop floor is a swamp of cardboard strips hacked from salvaged boxes. Laborers scoop them up, work them over and give them new life as smaller boxes, which Khan then sells to stationery and packing companies. In another warehouse a few doors down, dozens of rubber soles cut from discarded shoes also await a second chance. Next to these, a mountain of plastic castoffs -- toys, computer keyboards, car parts -- is separated by squatting workers, to be melted down into tiny pellets before being reborn in some new form.

With millions of homes in foreclosure - and millions more owners having difficulty paying their mortgages - there's likely to be one in every neighborhood: the property that has gone to seed. Maybe the lawn next door that you once envied has turned brown or the flower beds have been overtaken by weeds. Or perhaps the grass hasn't been cut in weeks and the house is surrounded by what looks like a wheat field. If the neighborhood eyesore has been abandoned, the house itself has probably deteriorated.

Its exterior is classic California bungalow with beveled siding, wood-trimmed windows and a cheery gabled roof. But inside the Venice house, owners David and Jennifer Ritch live with clean lines, an open floor plan and modern furnishings. Can the two styles -- cottage and contemporary -- coexist? How can 1906 California architecture meld with the design preferences of its 2009 occupants? The Ritches asked themselves those questions when they decided not to demolish a 950-square-foot bungalow that the city of Los Angeles had already cited as a public eyesore.

A sign on the wall of the building on South Figueroa Street reads: "No entry without permission." The interior, apartment units abandoned by an owner facing foreclosure, reveals the warning's ineffectiveness. Inside one apartment, a kitchen wall is spray-painted with names--G Bone, K Dog and 8 Ball--an abbreviated roll call for a gang that has claimed it as a hideaway.

A last-minute agreement Friday has spared the "Kron Street Castle," an architecturally unique residence that city officials have been threatening to demolish for more than 10 years. A wrecking ball was scheduled to hit the house today after city officials said they were left with no other means of forcing Haym and Fern Ganish to finish a remodeling job they launched in 1982.

In a neighborhood where homes on a mere half-acre lot can easily go for $750,000, there is a hint of exaggerated grandeur at the 4 1/2-acre Pasadena estate on South Oakland Avenue that belonged to Dovie Beams De Villagran. The lawn in the backyard is so large that children used to play full-field soccer on it; dozens of statues of bare-chested nymphs cover the estate; a pond complete with a small waterfall is affectionately referred to by neighbors as "the lake."

The bureaucrats at City Hall certainly have selective--if misguided--concepts of their responsibilities. Here a woman in Sylmar has worked wonders to beautify a miserable alley, and an "anonymous" complaint brought out the Upholders Of The Law with threats of cease and desist or else we'll come out, tear it down, and charge you for it. Yet more than three years of open, written and oral complaints about the contractor-created slum between Woodman...