CLEANUP RIDS THE ROCK OF DRUG DENS

MARATHON -- The bulldozers pummeled the house on 41st Street, pushing
everything from the walls and roof to dirty mattresses into piles to
be hauled away. When they were done, nothing was left but a concrete
slab.

Police hope the drug-dealing business in the Middle Keys crumbles
along with the house's powder-blue walls.

The house is one of 10 structures that Monroe County will tear down
this week in a Marathon neighborhood known as "The Rock." Sheriff's
Office deputies say criminals used the houses and trailers as
hide-outs and places to engage in prostitution and smoke crack cocaine.

The project is one of the biggest neighborhood cleanups in Keys'
history. When complete, the area defined by 39th and 41st streets, the
Overseas Highway and Florida Bay -- one police say is among the top
three drug havens in the island chain -- will be cleansed.

"This should be the last of it," said a relieved Sheriff's Deputy
Linda Pabone, The Rock's community policing officer since 1995. She
organized the effort with state and county crews.

Residents of this six-block neighborhood of brightly painted
trailers and cinder block homes came out to watch as county public
works crews and inmates from the Big Pine Road Prison arrived to clear
out the houses marked with a spray-painted "X."

"I've watched kids go into that building," said Sandy Graves, who
manages Tropic Isle apartments, one of two public housing projects in
the neighborhood. "We knew [drug users] were leaving paraphernalia
behind and kids got in there and played."

"It was real obvious the activity that was going on," said Sandy
Billiter, who runs Grace Jones Day Care across the street from the
condemned buildings. "The little kids shouldn't have to see things
like that."

Billiter didn't want to describe the things she had
seen.

"I learned early on that people mind their own business in this
neighborhood."

Police expect immediate results. That's what happened after the
county's last major cleanup 10 years ago, when crews tore down
abandoned trailers in Pearle Trailer Park on Stock Island.

"Crime virtually disappeared," said Deputy Becky Herrin, the
Sherriff's Office spokeswoman. "We're hoping the same thing happens
here."

Lilie Davis, a Rock resident for more than two decades, says changes
have been occurring slowly since Deputy Pabone began working in the
neighborhood.

"Pabone has gone all out for this neighborhood," Davis said while
reading the paper beneath an almond tree a block from where the
bulldozers worked. "The roads were so terrible. There were so many
junky cars around. She cleaned them up, she got out there with her
lawn mower and cleared the grass."

Neighbors followed suit, she said.

"When you see people clean up the place, others get the spirit," Davis
said.