Miscreant damaging empty houses (7)
I believe the answer is:
villain
'miscreant' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'damaging empty houses' is the wordplay.
'damaging' becomes 'ill'.
'empty' becomes 'vain' (I've seen this before).
'houses' is an insertion indicator.
'ill' placed inside 'vain' is 'VILLAIN'.
(Other definitions for villain that I've seen before include "One played badly" , "Wicked criminal" , "Criminal person" , "Scoundrel" , "Bad person in story/play" .)