Houses

John Bailey thought it was great when his neighbor was elected to the House of Representatives in 2007. "Not everyone lives next door to a congresswoman," he said. But two years later, he doesn't feel so lucky. The congresswoman's house is abandoned and in disrepair, "a blight on the neighborhood," Bailey said. He thinks the way that Rep. Laura Richardson (D-Long Beach) has treated her Sacramento home tells far more about her than her voting record.

The two-bedroom stucco house at 3304 Drew St. in Glassell Park was once the center of one of the most menacing drug marketplaces in Los Angeles. From the house, Maria "Chata" Leon, an illegal immigrant, her family and associates controlled drug and gang activity on the street for years, police said.

Until the evacuation orders were lifted at 10 a.m. Sunday, Paul Reide held out hope that his home on tidy, tree-lined Montrose Place in the foothills north of downtown Santa Barbara had survived last week's devastating Jesusita fire. Less than 30 minutes later, the tall, silver-haired retired salesman stood forlornly on a block of concrete that was once the foyer of the 3,000-square-foot tri-level home he liked to call "a quiet little paradise."

Charred slopes in the foothills towering above William Johnson's La Cañada Flintridge home are now a mudslide in the making after being charred by recent wildfires. But getting insurance for his property has been impossible for him and many of his neighbors, he said, as winter rains loom. Johnson, 54, said he called three providers, each of whom said they would not issue insurance for his area. "While I'm trying to get protection, they don't want to deal with their losses, and they're trying to maximize their profits," he said.

A father and son were treated for smoke inhalation from an early morning house fire in Covina on New Year's Day, according to Los Angeles County Fire Department officials. The fire occurred at a home on Cameron Avenue near Grand Avenue. The blaze, which was started by embers from the fireplace, began at 1:20 a.m. and was put out about 50 minutes later, fire officials said. The blaze caused about $30,000 damage to the $1.6-million house.

San Miguel de Allende, Mexico MICHELE CONNOR calls her ranch "a hunting lodge where there's no hunting," 20 acres greened by fields of alfalfa and shared with six dogs, 10 horses, a dozen sheep and a couple of burros, not to mention the chickens, geese and peacocks. It's a scene that reminds Connor of childhood, when she would play with dolls and imagine an escape far from the city. "I would make little corrals and play with little animals," Connor says. "That was my fantasy.

IF Carson Kressley did a series on "How to Look Good Naked" for the home, the thing that he would need to coax off many of our houses would be the coy ring of hedging around the foundations. America needs someone as observant and funny as him to turn our homes toward the mirror, point to the line of shrubs running beneath the living room windows and ask: "Why? What is so ugly about the line where structure meets earth?"

We've only just begun . . . to learn what is happening to the Downey family home that was made world-famous by the pop duo the Carpenters. The five-bedroom tract house and a smaller next-door dwelling that was connected to it by an enclosed walkway was where Richard and Karen Carpenter fine-tuned their greatest hits in the 1970s. The pair lived in the main house with their parents. The adjoining house was something of an annex, where there was an office, rehearsal studio and recreation room.

Those snazzy HEPA -- high efficiency particulate air -- filters designed for home use may actually do a body good, Danish researchers have found. Just two days of exposure to HEPA filters in the home resulted in a significant, positive effect on a key measure of cardiovascular health among 21 nonsmoking couples ages 60 to 75, says Dr.

EVEN in Silver Lake, where the prevailing architectural style is Anything Goes, the Priuses are slowing down to check out that house on Elevado Street. After 10 months of renovations, what had been a dreary Spanish-style four-plex is now a one-man Moroccan fantasy fronted by hand-forged ironwork, glowing mosaic fountains and a turret-like entrance topped with a mural of trumpeting elephants. What passersby may not know is that the magic carpet ride continues inside.