Removing phone wires in front of houses

[joeboxes]

I made a picture of Victorian houses in San Francisco. What is the best way to remove clusters of phone running in front of the houses?  I've tried the spot healing, healing, and patch tools and different settings on the diffusion.  Either the wires are not removed totally, leaving a ghost effect of the wire and /or the path where the wires were or some of the features of the houses are distorted.  

[Theresa J · Accepted solution]

The results you describe are normal. There is no magic, single fix to remove wires. It takes a combination of tools, and time. I would start with the healing brush tool using the shift click method to draw a straight line from one end of a wire to the other. Make the brush size just a few pixels larger than the wire. This should remove the wires. Then go back over everything with the clone stamp tool recreating and patching areas that are distorted or missing.