The Brief

Do you hate composting as much as I do?

Even though I know it has benefits for both my garden and the environment, I hate turning the pile and worrying about the right ratio of greens to browns and whether it’s too wet or too dry. And it’s always dispiriting to check for loamy, wonderful compost at the bottom only to pull up chunks of vegetables from two months ago.

And before you ask about worm farms, I’ve tried them too. Let’s just say that at some point, I expect to be held accountable for my crimes against worm-kind.

But for the compost- and time-challenged like me, I think I may have found a solution that allows me to simply toss my kitchen scraps into a bin and have it turned into fertilizer in about a month.

The catch: It involves thousands of maggots.

Don’t bail just yet. I think I can convert you into a larvae lover.

Black soldier flies, a composting powerhouse

Black soldier flies are dark blue and shiny, less than an inch long and don’t buzz around your head or bother you like a house fly might. They also live a handful of days, with their entire existence oriented around laying hundreds of eggs on organic waste so their larvae can go to town and start the cycle of reproduction all over again.

It’s those millimeters-long larvae that are going to speed up the composting process for us.

This is what you'll be dealing with: tiny larvae that turn darker when they're about to become flies.

(

John Obermeyer

/

Purdue University

)

Adult black soldier flies live only a few days. Their job is to mate and lay eggs and keep the composting process moving.

(

Laura Ingwell

/

Purdue University

)

“Unlike earthworms, [they’re] much more tolerant of a wider range of conditions and food sources. It will eat any organic waste in the larval form,” said Kerry Mauck, associate professor of entomology at UC Riverside.

She and her colleagues recently wrote a paper that describes a food waste processing system driven by black soldier fly larvae that was largely self-sustaining for about two years. Similar systems have been used to process food waste around the world.

The larvae will eat paper, vegetables and fruits, as well as meats and animal fats (two things you're often discouraged from adding to traditional compost), breaking them down into smaller bits that can be further processed by microbes in the soil. Adding organic matter like frass to the soil can help improve soil health.

Importantly, the insect frass that’s left behind — maggot poop, as well as the bits and pieces of exoskeleton they shed as they grow — is an organic fertilizer that has a nutrient profile similar to chicken manure, she said.

The exoskeletons contain chitin — a type of sugar molecule found in the shells of crabs and lobsters that breaks down into tiny pieces over time. When detected by plants, it can prompt them to boost their immune systems in anticipation of insect attacks, making them more resilient, Mauck said.

Composting with the help of black soldier fly larvae may just change your relationship with maggots.

(

Laura Ingwell

/

Purdue University

)

How to build your own black soldier fly system

You’ve got a lot of flexibility, depending on the size of your space and how much food waste you create.

“You don't have to make it complicated at all. It can be set-it-and-forget-it if you want it to be,” said Laura Ingwell, an associate professor of entomology at Purdue University who’s been working with black soldier flies for about a decade.

Her system is quite simple.

A Purdue entomologist's black soldier fly contraption is simple but effective.

(

Laura Ingwell

/

Purdue University

)

She fills a 50-gallon barrel with food waste, lets the soldier flies continuously go through their life cycles over the course of a year and harvests their frass when they die during the winter.

Here in Southern California, we don’t need to worry about extreme cold killing off our larvae, so we can keep our systems rolling year-round.

Simple systems and where to get flies

Your system can be as simple as a bucket or black plastic tote that you toss food waste into. Unlike a traditional compost bin, the containers need only be about a foot deep or so, as the larvae don’t travel far.

Order some black soldier fly larvae from an online store like Symton or Fluker Farms, drop them in and just keep piling more food waste on top over time.

If you don’t want to spend money on black soldier flies, you can also attract your own. Dump citrus and coffee grounds in a bucket, cover it with a screen and place a stack of cardboard pieces on top. Every few days, check the fluting on the cardboard for tiny soldier fly eggs. Once you’ve got a few, drop the cardboard into the food waste and let them eat.

Check inside the cardboard for fly eggs.

(

Purdue University

)

The eggs aren't big: just the size of the head of a pin.

(

Purdue University

)

My system

My system’s going to be a bit more complicated, as I want to harvest frass repeatedly throughout the year. I’ll have three totes inside a screened-in platform. That should keep the black soldier flies in and other bugs and critters out.

My screened black soldier fly house prevents other bugs from getting in and keeps the black soldier flies from escaping. This should encourage them to keep laying eggs in the containers I'll place inside.

(

Jacob Margolis

/

LAist

)

As they close in on three weeks of life, I should see the pupae turn from creamy white to dark gray, and their eating will slow down. At that stage, I’ll start dropping food waste into a new container, so when the first black soldier flies emerge, they’ll mate and lay eggs on the fresh food, keeping the cycle going.

I’ll then be able to drop the first bucket of frass on my veggie garden and fruit trees.

At least, that’s how I’m hoping it’ll work.

What to feed black soldier fly larvae

Ingwell said they’ll eat pretty much any type of organic waste, including manure, pizza crusts and noodles or even those questionably compostable cardboard takeout containers and light green produce bags. It may take the maggots a bit longer to get through those, Ingwell said. It’s also worth experimenting on your own to see what they consume.

“ I've put a whole pack of hot dogs in there once,” Ingwell said. “ They ate it, and they got really big, but it smelled so bad. My students forbid me from ever putting hot dogs in there again because they hated dealing with the colony when they were on their hot dog diet.”

More than 5,000 black soldier fly larvae are lurking just beneath the surface of this kitchen waste dumped inside of a black tote.

(

Jacob Margolis

/

LAist

)

Larvae from one gram of eggs can eat approximately two pounds of food in a week and a half.

Troubleshooting

Search the internet and you’ll find all sorts of black soldier fly contraptions, like this one, which has ramps for the larvae to march up before they pupate. Ingwell said these systems often don’t work well, and she wouldn’t bother.

If the system is too wet, it may smell rancid and the larvae may try to leave. In that case, throw in some dry wood chips or paper or drain the liquid. When I first started my bin, it took the larvae a bit to get adjusted, and some fled in the process.

If you’re considering using the frass in your garden but you’re disposing of meats, you may be concerned about E. coli. To reduce the presence of microbes in the frass, you can age it for a few weeks, though contamination is an area that needs more research, Mauck said.

Keep us updated

I’ll be documenting my journey over on YouTube, on 89.3 FM and right here at LAist.com.

If you decide to give black soldier flies a try, let us know. Send me an e-mail or comment on one of our videos.

A federal judge said she’ll need more time to decide whether to grant a temporary court order to give immigrants detained at Adelanto ICE Processing Center immediate relief.

Immigrants rights groups and a private firm filed a lawsuit against Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security in January. They allege that the approximately 2,000 people currently held at the Adelanto complex are subject to inhumane treatment.

On top of squalid conditions, plaintiffs say detainees are fed cold, unsanitary food and expected to drink dirty water. They also allege detainees must often wait several months to see a doctor, if they ever do.

“The conditions in which these non-citizens are being held in the Adelanto detention facility, as alleged in the petition, are certainly concerning,” said Judge Sunshine Sykes at a hearing Tuesday for the Central District of California. “I think that each of us would never want to be in that position.”

Still, Sykes said she was tentatively inclined to “deny the motion [for a preliminary injunction] without prejudice or to allow plaintiffs to withdraw the motion and refile it,” which would give the immigrants rights groups a chance to address her concerns. She then gave the attorneys the opportunity to respond and, potentially, convince her otherwise.

What’s happening at Adelanto?

Adelanto is about 90 miles away from downtown Los Angeles. According to the lawsuit, the detention center does not accommodate detainees with special needs. Detainees with mobility issues, for instance, are assigned top bunks. And in a sworn declaration, one detainee described being put in handcuffs and ankle chains when she is taken to court appointments, even though she uses a cane.

Plaintiffs also say solitary confinement is used to retaliate against detainees who speak out against these conditions and to isolate those who are experiencing mental health crises. An LAist analysis of the most recent ICE data found that as of January, Adelanto is among the top 10 facilities that put immigrant detainees in solitary confinement across the country.

The detention center is run by The GEO Group Inc., one of the largest private prison operators in the United States.

The federal government has declined LAist's request for interviews and comments, and The GEO Group has not responded to those requests.

The arguments for and against an injunction

In the hearing, Judge Sykes raised concerns that The GEO Group and the Adelanto warden are not named in the lawsuit. She also questioned how the court could enforce an order for immediate relief and wondered if there might be a more “efficient” way for the plaintiffs to proceed.

The federal government has asked the judge to dismiss the lawsuit altogether. Pushkal Mishra, representing ICE and DHS, said “between the government and the alleged injury are the independent, discretionary, uncertain and speculative day-to-day activities of a third party.” The GEO Group and its employees, he argued, “are the proper defendants in the case, not [the] government.”

The advocates' lawsuit underscores that companies like The GEO Group are subject to inspection by the federal government. Recently, ICE gave the Adelanto ICE Processing Center a “good” rating. Since September 2025, at least four people have died in detention at Adelanto, the most recent March 25.

At the hearing, Vanessa Young Viniegra, a fellow at Public Counsel, refuted the federal government’s argument that ICE and DHS should not be named defendants in the case.

“The Supreme Court has been clear that the government has a constitutional duty to care for the people in its custody and the people that it chooses to detain,” she said, “regardless of whether it employs a private company.”

Judge Sykes interjected: “I don't think I'm saying that the government is not a proper defendant. I'm saying that The GEO Group [and] the warden of Adelanto may need to be joined or brought in as defendants as well.”

Young Viniegra noted that the motion for the emergency court order provides the government “some leeway” in terms of how it obligates Adelanto to provide adequate care for detainees.

“We're not asking the court to order, you know, a specific number of staff,” she said. “It's up to the government to comply with its constitutional obligations and exactly how it does that and its relationship with GEO is for it to decide.”

What's next?

Sykes said she’ll need more time to make a decision. In addition to the preliminary injunction, she is also navigating the federal government’s motion to dismiss the case and a motion by the plaintiffs to make this a class action lawsuit, meaning the court’s outcome would apply to all Adelanto detainees.

Learn more about Adelanto

• Is Adelanto's ICE detention facility a ‘concentration camp’? And does it matter?
• Adelanto ICE facility's use of solitary confinement is among 10 highest in US, data shows
• These Angelenos journeyed to Adelanto to protest conditions at immigrant detention centers

When it was first built nearly 100 years ago, the Jardinette Apartments building in Hollywood made international headlines for its radical design. At the time, Los Angeles had never seen anything quite like architect Richard Neutra’s iconoclastic vision of what apartment living could look like.

But by the end of the century, the Jardinette had become dilapidated, its historic significance hidden behind years of neglect.

Now, this pioneering piece of L.A. architecture is coming back to life.

Developer Cameron Hassid bought the nationally registered building in 2020 after previous owners tried but failed to restore it. With the renovation now nearing completion, the Jardinette’s original concept once again is coming into clear view.

“It was a big, heavy lift,” Hassid said, describing the project as the most complicated in his career. “There are so many apartment buildings in L.A. But none of them will have the story or any of the significance that this does.”

First steps for a now-famous architect

In the 1920s, Neutra was a young Austrian architect who had recently moved to the United States to work with Frank Lloyd Wright and fellow Austrian émigré Rudolph Schindler.

Historians cite the style he would go on to develop — with its flat roofs, expansive windows, deep overhangs and blending of the indoors and outdoors — as defining the language of mid-century California modernism.

Neutra's Palm Springs Kaufmann Desert House from 1946 and his Silver Lake VDL Research House II from 1965 became iconic homes of the period.

Richard Neutra's family lived in the VDL Research House II, located in Silver Lake and designed by Neutra with his son, Dion.

(

Michael Locke via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr

)

But the Jardinette, built in 1928, was Neutra’s first major commission in L.A., coming just a few years after his arrival in the United States.

Architecture historians say Neutra’s goal was to strip down the Jardinette’s design, maximizing light and fresh air in the building’s 43 modestly sized apartments, all in keeping with the burgeoning International Style.

Long ribbon windows are the most striking feature in an otherwise unadorned facade. Windows join at corners and stretch across nearly entire walls, connecting living rooms and kitchens. Panes in the walls of interior closets bring “borrowed light” into shadowy interiors.

Neutra outfitted many of the apartments with balconies that cantilever off reinforced concrete. The balconies were ideal for outdoor plants — hence the name Jardinette, or Little Garden.

The restoration of the Jardinette Apartments is nearly complete.

(

David Wagner

/

LAist

)

Barbara Lamprecht, an architectural historian who consulted on the preservation of the Jardinette, said Neutra’s approach would have seemed utterly alien amid the 1920s development boom in L.A.

“All these other revival styles were happening: Tudor Revival, Spanish Colonial Revival,” said Lamprecht, the author of Neutra: Complete Works from the publisher Taschen. “This was not a milieu that encouraged, fostered or remotely understood the tenets of early modernism.”

Once-lauded edifice falls on hard times

The Jardinette helped secure Neutra’s fame far beyond the confines of Southern California. His work on the Jardinette was included in a landmark 1932 architecture exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

But by the 1990s, the Jardinette had all but lost its visionary purity. It was painted pink and green. The previously uniform steel windows were mismatched, using cheap materials. The walls were graffitied.

By the late 20th century, the Jardinette had fallen into disrepair.

(

Junkyardsparkle

/

Wikimedia Commons

)

“It was sad,” said Corey Miller with June Street Architecture, who worked on the renovation.

“It's just what happens when buildings get neglected,” he said. “It's important to look back on these ideas and not lose them and try to maintain them and not cover them up. Now, hopefully for another 100 years, more generations of people can experience the design the way it was originally intended.”

Working with the limits of a century-old building

The team behind the Jardinette’s renewal said the building was not easy to renovate. It was originally built without a cooling system. Its electrical system couldn’t meet modern energy needs. It didn’t have stand-up showers.

Installing those modern amenities while preserving Neutra’s original design proved challenging at times, said Anant Topiwala with June Street Architecture.

The team preserved whatever original materials they could, Topiwala said, but they needed to order custom tiles, windows and other parts in order to match historic photographs and documents.

A historic photograph shows the Jardinette in its original state.

(

Courtesy Cameron Hassid

)

“We were like archeologists, in a way,” he said. “There was a lot of peeling back. What do we think the paint color was? What do we think that wood detail was?

“Neutra didn't like angles. We needed to make sure, for example, the casing around the doors didn't meet at a mitered corner. There's just so many interesting things.”

Pulling permits for a protected landmark

The Jardinette has multiple historic designations. It’s in the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. And it’s protected as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument. Those classifications limit what kinds of changes are allowed in a renovation. Getting all the necessary permits was a job in itself, one handled by Michael Norberg with Cali Planners.

“Everything you can think of that could come up did come up on this building,” Norberg said. “But I think the bones have been reinforced. The historic aspect has been retained. The entire nature and history and spirit of this building is still here.

“And I love the fact that the city was willing to work with us on maintaining that,” he said.

How the past informs future plans

Hassid said the renovation should be completed by this summer. He added that he’s not yet sure what the building’s future will be, but he won’t sell it to a typical real estate investor. He recently put it on the market with Neema Ahadian of Marcus & Millichap.

“We've sold some really beautiful buildings, but nothing that has the history that you can find here,” Ahadian said. The buyer will need to be someone who understands the value of preserving a piece of architectural history, he said.

“This building's been through a few ownerships that have not necessarily had the same vision,” Ahadian said.

Two windows join at a right angle and a door opens to a balcony in one corner of a Jardinette apartment.

(

David Wagner

/

LAist

)

When he first took on the project, Hassid said, colleagues told him he was nuts. But he said ultimately the effort was worth it to preserve an L.A. architectural gem.

“I hope we made Richard Neutra proud, bringing his building back to life,” he said.

What does real luxury look like? 

Neutra built the Jardinette at a time when movie studios were growing. The Paramount studio lot is just a few blocks away.

Barbara Lamprecht, an architectural historian with expertise in Neutra's work, consulted on the preservation of the Jardinette.

(

David Wagner

/

LAist

)

Lamprecht, the Neutra historian, said she’s looking forward to seeing how people occupy the apartments. She said Neutra designed the Jardinette to bring a new kind of luxury to occupants who might have included up-and-coming actors or below-the-line production workers.

“The luxuries in life are access to sunlight, to views,” Lamprecht said. “This was the raison d'être for this entire building: to provide graceful, expansive lives to people who weren’t in single-family dwellings in the Hollywood Hills.”

Whoever the next tenants will be, Lamprecht said, “I feel like, for the first time, this building is not invisible any longer.”

Pasadena Unified will hear from the public Tuesday night as it considers plans to close and consolidate several schools within the district.

The campus closures are in response to declining enrollment that has left PUSD with a budget deficit that recent layoffs have not solved.

What’s happening

Parents and community members will hear from the School Consolidation Advisory Committee (SCAC) about its recommendations for which schools should be closed or consolidated.

It is the second of two town halls offered by the district. The first one was virtual.

There will be a public comment portion for attendees to give their input on the recommendations presented.

Which schools are in danger?

The advisory committee recommended a handful of schools be closed.

For TK through 8th grade, the recommended closures include Don Benito Fundamental School, Webster Elementary and Norma Coombs Elementary. The schools McKinley and Eliot Arts Magnet would merge, with the McKinley campus closing.

For high schools, the committee recommended consolidating Thurgood Marshall and Blair High School.

“But those are also six through 12 campuses, so the proposals being considered would split up those schools to nine through 12 and six through eight,” said David Wilson, a reporter for the Pasadena Star-News who spoke to Larry Mantle on LAist's daily news program AirTalk.

What’s next?

The advisory committee will present its recommendations to the Board of Education on May 28.

The board will then vote in June.

"PUSD remains committed to an unbiased process, guided at every step by Total School Solutions (TSS), the District’s independent consultant," a PUSD spokesperson said in a statement. "We remain committed to transparency and care for our community throughout this process."

How to attend the town hall

The district is hosting the in-person town hall from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday at Pasadena High School, 2925 E. Sierra Madre Blvd.

Monday's arraignment of 31-year old Cole Tomas Allen, a California man who is charged with attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump over the weekend, opened legal proceedings that many extremism experts will be watching closely.

Allen, a high school tutor with a background in mechanical engineering and computer science, allegedly attempted to storm the annual White House Correspondents Association Dinner on Saturday night, where Trump and other high-level administration officials were gathered with the Washington press corps. He was stopped by federal law enforcement officers before getting close to his presumed targets.

According to a White House official, Allen's sister told the Secret Service and local law enforcement that her brother was known to make "radical" statements. The official was not authorized to speak publicly and NPR has not confirmed this with Allen's family members. But this characterization has puzzled some experts who track extremism, who say that it does not align with writings and social media activity that are believed to link to the defendant.

"You look at the social media profiles that have been attributed to this suspect and they're really not that radical," said Jared Holt, senior researcher at Open Measures, a company that tracks online threats and narratives. "Oftentimes it's like quite centrist, pretty moderate left wing, if anything."

An affidavit filed by an FBI agent in support of the charges claims that Allen sent an email to members of his family moments before initiating the attack. The email specifies some grievances against Trump administration officials and policies.

"I'm not the person raped in a detention camp. I'm not the fisherman executed without trial. I'm not a schoolkid blown up or a child starved or a teenage girl abused by the many criminals in this administration," the letter states. The letter appears to reference a range of issues from immigration detentions under the Trump administration, U.S. strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, the bombing of a girls' school in Iran and the Epstein scandal.

In an apparent reference to Trump, the letter also says "I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes."

But Holt and others say these views, however pointed some of the terminology may be, fall within a modern mainstream left. He and others say it is very unclear what may have tipped the individual from such widely held views into an alleged violent plot.

"That's part of what's troubling, is when you start to have people who are kind of seemingly normal, law-abiding members of society feeling like violence is the solution," said Cynthia Miller-Idriss, founding director and chief vision officer at the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab, or PERIL, at American University.

"I think there's a little bit of nihilism reflected here," Miller-Idriss said. "This idea that there is no more solution, violence is the answer, nothing else is going to change, nothing else is going to be effective."

The alleged assassination attempt is the latest high-profile data point in a growing environment of political violence in the U.S. over the last decade. While most of that is attributed to the far right, there is alarm about rising violence from the left. Even amidst this backdrop, however, Holt and Miller-Idriss both note that the weekend incident at the Washington Hilton hotel stands out.

For starters, Holt said he's seen no indication that the defendant was steeped in conspiratorial thinking. He said that more typically, people behind acts of violent extremism are nursing grievances fed by false narratives.

"If you were to just kind of randomly bump into one of these people on the street, you might get the sense that something was a little off," Holt said. "Whereas this seems -- just looking at, you know, this BlueSky profile that's been attributed to the suspect and this document that's been attributed to the suspect – I'm not getting that same kind of read."

In addition, Miller-Idriss said the defendant's presumed writings suggest that he felt personally responsible for not having taken action sooner against the administration. She said they do not appear intended to incite others to take similar action, or to spread a particular ideological message. The tone is one of "defeatism," Miller-Idriss said, which contrasts with a more typical pattern of political violence, particularly from the far right.

"I don't think you usually see the defeatism on the far right, [which is] more of a mobilization of martyrdom, of wanting attention, of wanting to launch a movement, to be a firestarter, that kind of thing," she said. "This is like a much more hopeless kind of language and rhetoric being used."

Holt said this tone is troubling, not simply because of how it may connect to the violence that Allen is alleged to have been planning. But also because it may signal that on the left, there may be a growing perception that the levers of democracy can no longer work to effect change.

"That is a bleak point for an individual to get to," Holt said. "But I also think that people are getting to that point now should be cause for reflection for people who work in politics or who work in advocacy, or whatever it may be, that [with] the many problems that we're up against today, there is a subset of the American population that's losing hope and is having a hard time imagining a way out of it."
Copyright 2026 NPR