Sep. 20--Ever since Vivian Hearn retired from her job at Dillard's late last year, she has had a lot of time to sit on her front porch and watch the world go by. And staring at four rental properties directly across the street on Hickman Avenue, the 72-year-old didn't like what she saw.

"It was just run-down -- paint peeling, steps and porches falling down," she said. "It was bad."

The wood-frame homes owned by landlord Newton Riley had appeared derelict for as long as she could remember. But, she said, the tenants -- many of them elderly -- have never spoken up and demanded more.

So this summer, when Hearn saw First Ward Councilman Paul Sturtz walking through her neighborhood, she cornered him. She told Sturtz: "You've got to come down here and do something."

Sturtz agreed that the homes looked shabby and brought the matter to the attention of the city's Protective Inspection unit and the city's Neighborhood Response Team. Officials gave Riley three months to bring his properties up to code.

In recent weeks, Riley's crews have been hard at work replacing and caulking windows, putting up new wood paneling and laying on fresh paint. Sturtz said Riley, who owns nearly 70 properties around town, is representative of a significant number of landlords who need to be forced to do the bare minimum for their tenants.

Riley on Thursday declined to speak with a reporter.

"Some landlords are just seeing how much they can get away with," Sturtz said. "In a lot of neighborhoods, there's not a lot of fat as far as profit, so I think they're just trying to get by year after year without spending those few extra dollars on gutters or on painting the house."

That might be changing. Next year, the city will create a "Neighborhood Services Office" with a $732,000 budget and the specific task of enforcing rental codes. A full-time police officer will be dedicated to assisting the office.

Officials from the city's Neighborhood Response Team as well as the Protective Inspection and Environmental Health units now evaluate 3,500 properties a year while walking in the central city, looking for serious infractions.

But many landlords slip through the cracks. Bill Cantin, the city's Neighborhood Response Team coordinator, said a landlord can go as long as six years between formal city inspections unless someone complains. "I think there is a movement afoot to tighten the rules a little bit," he said. "And, myself, I think those concerns are valid."

The pressure is coming from multiple directions.

Amir Ziv, a landlord who owns 10 First Ward properties, recently noticed a "for rent" property on Seventh Street.