Jose Garcia swings a sledgehammer, bringing it down onto a piece of wood that once supported the front steps of the house at 6 Leisenring St. in Lansford. With the steps and support gone, he and co-worker Al Dunn begin hauling out the mountains of junk that pack the basement: At least four vacuum cleaners, several bedraggled artificial Christmas trees, an air conditioner, a child's scooter, a metal headboard, piles of cardboard boxes and a shiny brass ceiling fan.

Dunn swings the stuff, item by item, into the huge metal trash container in front of the house. By the afternoon, the container is filled to overflowing with three rooms full of trash, and a second one is on its way.Joseph Gallagher, who lives in the adjoining row home, is all smiles."Thank God for these people," he says.Gallagher in March approached borough council to plead with them to do something about the vacant, trash-filled house attached to his immaculately kept home. The smell was terrible, he said, and he and his wife were worried it would worsen as the weather grew warmer.The former owner, who according to court documents is a Lisa Kite, left the state in November. She has been repeatedly cited, and is now paying fines. The home is in foreclosure, with a bank holding the mortgage. The bank had padlocked the house, which zoning officer Katheryn Labosky had condemned.On March 21, Councilman Tommy Vadyak announced at a public meeting that borough police Officer Chris Ondrus had tracked down the bank officials responsible for the house, and arranged for it to be cleaned out.The cleanup is being done by Swedesford Properties, Inc., of Malvern, Chester County. Work began Monday, with employees putting in about 10 hours."The property is quite a mess," says company owner Bob Warnock, reached by telephone Tuesday. "This property is one of the worst we've ever done."Dunn described the inside of the house. The entire top of a bunk bed, he said, was covered in feces.He continues to load the trash container, chucking in a small, dusty television set, old tires, plastic tubing."I've never seen anything like this," he says.