THOUSANDS of invading cockroaches turned Port Richmond's award-winning 3600 block of Sepviva Street, near Venango, into a disgusting, disease-prone mess, say the furious, frustrated residents.

During the spring and summer, the tree-lined winner of "beautiful block" awards was overrun by hordes of roaches that spawned in the animal and human waste at 3613 Sepviva, neighbors said.

Block captain Miriam Oleckna, who lives next door to the heavily infested property, became tearful when she showed a reporter snapshots of the dog feces, the dirty diapers spilling out of torn garbage bags and the rampaging roaches that might force her to leave the only home she has ever known during her 79-year lifetime.

"I was born in this house and I don't want to move," Oleckna said in a voice on the verge of breaking. "But I can't put up with this. When the judge forced that woman to leave this summer, it was like heaven around here. Then he let her come back."

"That woman's" mouth, Oleckna said, was as filthy as her feces-strewn yard. "Effing-old-lady this; effing-old-lady that," Oleckna said. "I heard more f-words in the two years she's lived here than I had in my whole life. And I couldn't believe the mouths on her children."

"That woman" is Oleckna's next-door neighbor, Marie Bowers, who became equally tearful when she told a reporter how the courts ordered her and her children to vacate their roach-infested home so the city's Department of Licenses & Inspections could fumigate and remove all the roach-riddled furniture. "I felt like I lived in Frankenstein's castle and the people were coming to burn me out," Bowers said. "L&I changed the locks on my front door so I was locked out of my own house."

"Everything they said was majorly exaggerated. Their exterminator said that the roaches were so bad, they felt like a cat running down his back. I didn't have any more roaches than anybody else."

"There was dirt and roaches everywhere in her house," said Frank Fioravanti, owner/operator of Bugs,Inc., who was hired by L&I to fumigate. "Thousands of roaches were very active, especially on the first floor and in the basement."

"Two-and-a-half years ago," Bowers said tearfully, "I moved here from Amber and Cambria because my kids didn't know the difference between a gunshot and a firecracker. I wanted to give them a better life. Now, we have nothing. They stripped us of everything I own."

Bowers said that no matter what her neighbors think of her, they won't get rid of her.

"That lady next door is evil," Bowers said, referring to Oleckna. "She and her group think they own the block. Well, you can't pick and choose who lives on your block. I fought long and hard to get where I am. I have the right to live here."

Bowers' daughter Shannon, 18, who has two children of her own, said, "My mom works. She pays the bills. She's a single mom raising her kids. Those people signed petitions to get us out. What's their problem?"

Patrick O'Connor, who has lived on the other side of Bowers' house for 21 years and who says he started having roach problems only after the Bowers arrived, said, "This has been a nightmare from the day Marie Bowers moved in almost three years ago. Her property is full of dog s---, cat s---, human s---, roach s---, piles of s--- everywhere. We're all in tight living quarters as it is. This is about people not respecting their boundaries."

O'Connor walked into his spotless remodeled kitchen and picked up a glue trap covered with dead roaches. "I don't have a nest of roaches in here, but I'm getting spillage from her house," he said. "It's sickening."

Last spring, L&I informed Bowers that "all animal droppings must be removed from exterior property" and that a roach infestation "caused by your failure as an occupant to prevent such infestation" must be exterminated.

In July, Municipal Judge Robert S. Blasi, who supervises the civil division, ordered Bowers and her family to vacate and "remove all infested items including... furniture, clothing, etc."

L&I fumigated 3613 Sepviva and four rowhouses on each side, including Oleckna's and O'Connor's.

Earlier this month, the court allowed Bowers to return home and ordered her to allow future city re-inspections.

The neighbors fear that the roaches will return with her.

L&I will reinspect Bowers' property on Monday and report on Tuesday to Blasi, who will decide whether Bowers is compromising her right to live on the 3600 block of Sepviva by infringing upon her neighbors' rights to do the same.

"This is all about one family destroying the fabric of life for the other families on the block," state Rep. John Taylor recently told rattled residents. "Unfortunately, there's no home-run ball, no magic wand for dirty, disrespectful neighbors. The courts can fine them, but if you allow bugs to crawl on your kids, what's a fine going to do?"

Taylor said the problem was so widespread - "I've got a situation like this about every seven blocks" - that he wants to create "a Dirty, Disrespectful Neighbors Court with real teeth in it. If we want decent folks to stay in this city, we have to do right by them."

Oleckna said her first-ever encounter with Bowers was on Easter Sunday 2000, when she returned from vacation to find a handwritten note on her door:

"My Dear Nosey Next Door Neighbor,

"I asked you nicely once to stay out of my business. I don't know what your problem is and personally I don't care. I do not bother you and I do not want to be bothered and no matter what you do I am not going anywhere..."

Oleckna went to Easter Mass. When she returned home and knocked on Bowers' door to ask about the note, Oleckna says Bowers screamed, "Get off my effing step and stay out of my effing business."

That initial greeting, Oleckna said, was followed by two years of f-words, filth and roaches.

She and her neighbors are going to court on Tuesday to tell the judge they want Bowers out.

"I've worked hard all my life," Oleckna said. "When my husband was disabled, I worked as a welder, then I packed gaskets to support our family. I buried my husband in February.

"I love this block. I walk to Pathmark, to church, to my bus. All my friends are here. Why should I have to leave? I want her and her filth and her filthy mouth to leave. I want the judge to know that."

By DAN GERINGER, Philadelphia Daily News