House of Horrors : Nuisance: An abandoned Woodland Hills abode spooks residents by attracting teen-agers and vandals. The city orders it fixed or razed.

Most neighborhoods have their “haunted” house--the abandoned, beat-up old place that little kids cross the street to avoid and big kids bust up to prove their bravado.

Residents of Saltillo Street in Woodland Hills say the house that fills that role is a creepy white and green chateau looming over the neighborhood like the Addams’ Family mansion. Even its grown-up neighbors say the place makes it difficult to sleep at night.

Not because it attracts ghosts or ghouls, but because rowdy teen-agers and thrill-seekers invade the house at all hours of the night to hold parties, make out or break the few remaining windows.

“They have a great time cracking the place up,” one neighbor said.

But residents along Saltillo were given a reprieve Tuesday when the Los Angeles City Council ordered the 77-year-old house razed as a public nuisance. City officials said they expect the wood-frame house to be demolished within the next two months, ending five years of complaints from neighbors.

The interior of the two-bedroom house is scarred with graffiti--including the spray-painted phrase “New people rot in Hell”--and weeds cover the yard. The roof, floors and walls have holes where boards are missing and those windows not boarded up have been smashed.

“The residents have been living with this for a long time,” said Rosalind Wayman, field deputy for Councilman Marvin Braude, who introduced Tuesday’s motion. “It was obvious there was not going to be any resolution to this problem” by the house’s owner.

Residents said that until it became vacant about five years ago the house was a charming part of their newish hillside neighborhood, a throwback to the area’s rustic past. But when longtime owner Alberta Bass moved out, the problems began. A few tenants tried to make improvements, but never with much success, said neighbor Estelle Dvorin.

Bass could not be reached for comment.

Soon after the house became vacant, local high school students began venturing inside, goaded by friends who spread the rumor that three witches owned the place.

“We looked away for awhile because it was a fairly harmless pastime,” Dvorin said. “But then it started attracting a more sinister element. People were coming up at all hours of the night.”

Dvorin said residents once found several dead fowl in the yard, leading them to suspect that the house was being used for satanic rituals. That incident and others persuaded residents to seek Braude’s help in having the house demolished, Dvorin said.

Braude’s assistance was required because a 2-year-old city ordinance prohibits the demolition of a house without plans for future housing on the site. Only the City Council can order a house destroyed as a public nuisance.

Ruben Perez, Department of Building and Safety inspector, said owner Bass has a month to either demolish the house or make it livable. If Bass does not comply within a month, he said, the city will demolish the house and bill her for the work, adding a 40% administrative fee to the tab.