An old house in a new location was getting special attention Saturday from the neighborhood group that battled to save it from the demolition ball.

Members of the Oread Neighborhood Assn. gathered at 1033 Ky. and spent the morning cleaning and doing other odd jobs around the 114-year-old house that was moved in March from 1309 Ohio. Other century-old houses near it on Ohio Street were demolished to make room for a new KU scholarship hall.

“We were intent on preserving this from the university and saving at least one piece of that lot,” said Charlie Goff, an association member and director of University of Kansas Student Housing Assn., which also wanted the house to be saved.

Saturday was the annual spring cleanup day for the Oread neighbors, and members chose to focus much of their attention on the house.

A contractor is in the process of preparing the lot so the house can be lowered onto the framework of the basement below. Meanwhile, outside the house there were rocks to be moved and inside plaster was being knocked off the walls. Other debris also was being picked up.

“I’m moving rocks,” said a woman who identified herself as CharityGrace. “I’m an untrained worker in my 70s.”

When renovation is completed sometime late in the year, the house will be used by the student housing association for apartments. The association is an independent student housing cooperative.

The third floor attic, where a 1968 calendar was still pasted on a wall that slanted into the roof, will be closed off, said Chris Baker, a Kansas City, Mo., senior who is coordinating students who have volunteered to work on the house.

“There’s still a lot of things in the house to clean up and do,” Baker said.

Greg Seibel shovels dirt out of the basement of the house at 1033 Ky. Oread-area volunteers cleaned up the relocated house and its surroundings Saturday.

About 20 members of the Oread association spent time either working on the house or fanning out into the neighborhood to pick up trash along streets, sidewalks and alleys. Association president Candy Davis and landlord James Hicks filled four trash bags between 9:30 a.m. and 11 a.m.

“We’re finding just about everything you can find,” Davis said, describing the trash they’d picked up. “Especially in the alleys, and much of it within sight of a Dumpster. I’m chagrined by the students and the people that leave this stuff.”

Hicks said he thought the trash didn’t just come from residents and renters in the neighborhood adjacent to the east of the KU campus.

“I think people leaving the bars just drop their containers,” he said.