Trouble spot; Neighbors say tensions won't ease.

• Position: NEWS

Byline: Bronislaus B. Kush; Scott J. Croteau

WORCESTER - It was the rock thrown through her living room window that finally settled the question.

For months, the South Worcester woman debated how much longer she could put up with the harassment, intimidation, and taunts; the vandalism to the small home she so lovingly cared for; and the constant threat of harm to her two school-age children.

The projectile shattered more than a plate of glass.

It burst her vision of the American dream - of owning a home and becoming part of a community.

"It's over. I just give up," said the Douglas Street woman, who asked that the Sunday Telegram not use her name because of fear of retaliation by her former neighbors. "They have won."

On June 7, the woman - a self-described victim of thugs whom she and others said have been terrorizing residents in the Cambridge-Douglas-Grand Street area - packed up some belongings, and, with children in tow, left her home to stay temporarily with a friend.

She said she doesn't plan to return.

"I have two options now - bankruptcy or a homeless shelter," said the woman, who works for a social service agency in southern Worcester County.

Over the last few years, the city, in partnership with social service organizations such as the South Worcester Neighborhood Improvement Corporation, has pumped money and other resources into revitalizing the neighborhood, a vast expanse of blue-collar housing and old industrial sites primarily centered around Southbridge and Cambridge streets.

The results have been mixed.

Well-maintained homes sit next to houses with broken windows and overgrown lawns.

A number of properties in the area have large For Rent signs in front of them.

"It's really a neighborhood in conflict with itself," said Ronald Charette, SWNIC's executive director. "On one hand, you have property owners who are always working to upkeep their homes. On the other, you have landlords, many of them absentee, who could care less. Their buildings are in terrible shape, and they attract people like drug users and dealers because the rents are so cheap."

Five years ago, the world looked a lot more hopeful to the Douglas Street woman.

She had just bought a unit in a recently constructed duplex built under the auspices of the nonprofit SWNIC.

She soon found herself battling the residents at 1 and 3 Douglas St., however, over her complaints about frequent parties and other "disturbances" occurring at the three-story, multiunit building...