Nuisance

For most players on teams boasting a 10-0 record and a scoring advantage of 378-67, hearing someone label them as underdogs would cause a combination of disbelief and discontent. Even if the label happened to be pinned upon them by their highly respected coach. Close your eyes. You can probably imagine the moaning . . . "Underdog? This guy must be nuts," the players would be saying. "He's supposed to have faith in us, but here he is calling us underdogs. " Wednesday afternoon, during a team meeting held in preparation for yesterday's Thanksgiving game with North Catholic, Frankford coach Al Angelo indeed likened his team to downtrodden pooches.

Lower Makefield Township supervisors have put the bite on barking dogs by authorizing the police department to issue citations to their owners. At their meeting Monday night, the supervisors amended the animal nuisance ordinance to cover excessive noise caused by continuously barking dogs. Previously, the ordinance, which includes only dogs and horses, required only that owners clean up after their animals and prevent them from running free. According to township Police Chief Charles Ronaldo, the amendment was prompted by complaints from residents who contend that barking dogs are disturbing the peace.

For the first time since a brothel was boarded up in 1926, a house was closed yesterday under New Jersey's criminal nuisance law. A municipal judge ruled that a Lawnside woman should be barred from her home for 11 months because the house had repeatedly been the site of drug dealing. Lawnside Municipal Court Judge James W. Faison 3d ordered the closing of the house of Harrietta Cauthorne, 49, who was found guilty Dec. 4 of maintaining a criminal nuisance in October 1989.

As Ervin Lohbauer drives slowly through his home town of Collingswood, his eyes scrutinize virtually every house, lot, side road, car and even telephone pole. Lohbauer tours Collingswood in this manner for a few hours each day, looking for anything that might detract from the "clean and peaceful area" he calls home. In fact, if you live in Collingswood and your grass is overgrown, junk cars litter your property, your dog barks late into the night, or even if you put your trash out a few days early, expect Erv Lohbauer to be knocking on your door soon.

In an East Mount Airy neighborhood early Sunday morning, the darkness, the cool night air and the normal noise of traffic on busy Stenton Avenue were punctuated by what residents of this middle class neighborhood say has become a familiar sound. Gunfire. There have been a rash of shooting incidents on this particular stretch of Stenton between Mount Airy Avenue and Allen's Lane as of late, two of them involving several men shooting at each other and leaving in speeding automobiles.

IT'S BAD enough hearing my own phone ring these days, because it's usually not good news. But I shouldn't have to be answering the phone every time there's a ring in the background of a TV show. With the development of good sound, the TV rings really match home phones. (C'mon, I know you too have tried to answer a phone ring that was really on TV.) With that annoyance, plus all the news tickers, network logos and name IDs on my TV screen, I sure wouldn't mind having another button on one of my six remotes to eliminate it all somehow.

Nolan Ryan, on the disabled list because of ailing legs, said yesterday he was getting better and doesn't think the injuries indicate the end of his career is near. Ryan, in his 26th major-league season, is on the disabled list for the fourth time since 1990. "I look at it from the standpoint that it's more of a nagging, nuisance- type thing," Ryan said. Ryan was examined Wednesday by Lewis Yocum, an orthopedic specialist in Inglewood, Calif., who told him to go home and work out in a swimming pool.

Roger Pancoast, 42, of Lansdale, was in the middle of getting dressed for a Christmas dinner at his in-laws' home when his beeper went off. Joe Stockert, 24, was with his family watching television while the turkey roasted. It was 1:34 p.m. and the two Fairmount Fire Company volunteers figured they would be back in time to eat. It was only a fire in a large trash bin. They knew it would be a quick battle. But they didn't know that a couple of firebugs, a broken alarm and a leaking gas main would keep them hopping from fire call to fire call for the next 12 hours.

The city said the house in the 4100 block of Rhawn Street created "a hazard to the health and safety" of occupants and the public. "These conditions constitute an emergency and must be corrected immediately," declared the 1987 violation notice from the city's Department of Licenses and Inspections. Although the city went to court against property owner William McCabe, neighbors say the sordid story of his broken-down two-bedroom twin never ended. It continued as an unlicensed rooming house, filled with late-night noise, strewn with garbage, high weeds and raw sewage.

What the Rev. Janet Peterman appreciates most is the peace that has descended on her home in East Mount Airy since the rowdy bar next door was forced to shut its doors. Mere yards from the graveyard in front of St. Michael's Evangelical Lutheran Church at Germantown Avenue and Phil-Ellena Street, the Wagon Wheel Inn had for years been a target of residents' wrath. For Pastor Peterman, who lives next to the church and just behind the cemetery - a setting that, in any other location, would seem to guarantee tranquillity - the bar had become a constant source of annoyance.