No such thing as a free... house?

My mom hobbled downstairs giggling (she hurt her knee tripping over lumber she's been cutting up) and told me to come up and see the craigslist page under "free". 2 Houses on 14th street in Harrisburg. You pay the cost for deed transfer and you can have them.
Most people would roll their eyes and say "Must be a crap hole!". We did that, then decided to find out just how bad of a crap hole it was! Both were in really rough condition, but hadn't been condemned. One of them had a notice of taxes owed - about $1800 - tacked to the door. The other one... well, it had a door...
To be clear, we were checking them out for the SOM - not as a primary home or rental. I think one of them MAY be salvageable, but well beyond my abilities. If they weren't row homes I'd seriously consider taking them down and putting up a straw bale home on each lot, but the layout is wrong for that.
It seems like half the block there is for sale, too. I counted no less than 5 for sale signs - and the houses we were checking didn't have any.
I would love to be able to pick up these houses for a song, wave a magic wand and repair everything, and then start renting them out. Too bad my magic wand ran out of fairy dust shortly after I turned 11! The cleanup alone would require 2 large dumpsters, a crew of really strong friends and enough food and alcohol to make sure those friends stayed friendly after that cleanout!
As it is, if the SOM wants the houses, they can acquire them and all the help they need. The Pepsi Bottling Group did a great job of fixing up 1604 (my former residence) and got some nice PR out of it. Besides, the SOM has been running into city issues - the city can't decide what to call the Silence. It isn't a shelter, a rental property, or a boarding house - so they're trying to limit the people in each home to 1 family and 2 individuals. Having a few more addresses to spread the people around in might be helpful.
So , the houses are "free", but I'd have to pay for transfer and taxes, then fix them. Oh well.
The good news is that Jake is making amazing progress on the fixer-upper that we will be living in after the wedding! Of course if you came in and saw it you'd say "what a dump", but trust me, it's come a long way.
Working on a passenger seat for my new bike - the baby seats are too small, and the trailers are heavy and cumbersome - I'll post once I figure something out!
Be prepared!