The Brief

About a month after the Eaton Fire destroyed thousands of houses in Altadena, fleets of smoke remediation vans could be seen parked outside the homes still standing.

Ash from the fire is potentially hazardous to human health, according to the public health officials. Work to safely remove that debris is now in full swing inside many homes.

But there’s no van outside the Pasadena home of a tenant we’re calling Elizabeth. Her single-family rental house is about three blocks south of houses that were incinerated. When she asked about her landlord’s plans to do something about the smoke damage, the landlord ordered her, her husband and her two young children to move out.

“After all the things that we've all been through, to now hear that your landlord is not only not going to clean the house, but wants you out because you’ve asked him to take care of the cleaning of the house ... it's so upsetting,” Elizabeth said.

LAist is not using her full name because of her concerns about further straining her relationship with her landlord and jeopardizing any future housing search. We have reviewed her landlord’s correspondence with her to verify what she’s been told.

Elizabeth is among several tenants near the Eaton Fire burn area who told LAist they’re not getting clear answers from landlords or property managers about who will take responsibility for cleaning homes coated in ash. In some cases, landlords have outright refused to fix smoke damage, telling renters they can either pay for it themselves or move out.

Housing experts say that under state and local laws, landlords are required to address smoke damage. But in practice, some renters are being told by government officials that their only path for getting this work done is to take their landlord to court.

‘No plans to clean this house’

Elizabeth’s family is renting a Craftsman home. The architecture is charming, but like many houses in Pasadena, it shows its age. The old latch windows don’t fully close. Hurricane-force winds were able to spew ash through the cracks, leaving visible residue in many areas.

The worst ash buildup is in her 10-year-old daughter’s bedroom, where the windows blew open, Elizabeth said. A dark layer of soot covered the child’s desk and toys.

Elizabeth said finding another nearby home to rent isn’t a viable option because the market has been flooded with fire victims. There are few available homes, and costs have skyrocketed as landlords increase asking rents — in many cases, higher than what is legally allowed.

“We're still paying rent here, and yet living at a friend's house for free for a couple more weeks,” Elizabeth said. “Then we really don't have anywhere to go because there's been no plans to clean this house.

“Unless we pay out of pocket and clean this place up, it's not going to happen.”

Smoke remediation vans have become a common sight in Pasadena, but some renters say they're struggling to get answers and timelines.

(

David Wagner

/

LAist

)

Who’s responsible for Eaton Fire ash?

Housing rights attorneys and landlord advocates agree that, under state law governing rental housing habitability, removing potentially toxic debris after a fire should be a landlord’s responsibility. They told LAist that renters are on the hook for any damage to their personal belongings, such as couches or mattresses saturated with ash. But it’s the landlord’s job to make the rental housing unit habitable, experts said.

Amy Tannenbaum, an attorney with Public Counsel, said government officials “should be making clear that this is the landlord's responsibility — bottom line.”

Housing experts said many landlords are fulfilling their duty to clean up rental homes. But some may be unsure where to start.

“The first call an owner should be making is to their insurance company,” said Daniel Yukelson, executive director of the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles. “They need to get a proper abatement company out to the property to assess it and do whatever cleanup is necessary before the tenants move back in, so that tenants have a safe environment to go back to.”

Renters feel out of the loop 

But some landlords and property managers are declining to tell tenants if, or when, they will arrange for smoke remediation.

Jason, a tenant who also asked LAist not to use his full name because of concerns about retaliation from his landlord, said a representative from his renters insurance company confirmed that his policy would not cover smoke remediation for his two-bedroom apartment in Pasadena.

“They would cover my personal property, but not the premises,” Jason said. “I was like, ‘Well, who would do that?’ And he was like, ‘Well, your landlord should.’”

“Yeah, they should,” Jason continued. “But they are, I think, trying to avoid that.”

Jason said he and his daughters have been bouncing between Airbnb rentals and hotel rooms, waiting for updates from his property manager. He said the apartment building has been inspected by a remediation company, but he hasn’t heard anything about the results.

“I don't want to live in a place that could be dangerous with two young kids,” he said. “It just doesn't feel like a very honest, transparent relationship, which is unfortunate when people's safety is at risk.”

Personal belongings are piled on a sidewalk outside an apartment building near the Eaton Fire burn area.

(

David Wagner

/

LAist

)

Pasadena says ash is toxic, but doesn’t violate code

Pasadena health officials have been telling tenants that ash from the Eaton Fire is potentially toxic. But the city’s housing officials have been telling tenants they cannot force landlords to carry out ash cleanup.

Pasadena housing officials have told tenants to consider hiring an attorney and that local regulations don’t specifically address toxic ash in rental housing. The city’s code compliance employees have emailed tenants, saying, “there are no codes in regards to ash so this would be considered a civil matter.”

Pasadena’s building code says housing units are not considered habitable if they contain “debris, garbage, offal, rat harborages, stagnant water, combustible materials” or other materials that could “constitute fire, health or safety hazards.”

The word “ash” is not explicitly mentioned in Pasadena’s code. By contrast, the city of L.A.’s building code specifically lists “ash” and “partially burned building materials” as hazardous.

Tannenbaum, the Public Counsel attorney, said that discrepancy doesn’t mean ash is beyond the scope of Pasadena’s code. She said local laws include broad language about health and safety that clearly cover ash containing chemicals from thousands of destroyed homes.

“If you're saying that this ash probably contains toxic substances — including asbestos, including lead — this is injurious to human health, but it's OK for a tenant to move back in there. That's a pretty callous disregard for a tenant's health and safety,” Tannenbaum said.

LAist emailed Pasadena code compliance officials to ask how they interpret laws governing habitability of rental housing with smoke damage. We asked if they would give a home coated in Eaton Fire ash a passing grade upon inspection. They have not responded to those questions.

The city’s spokesperson, Lisa Derderian, emailed a statement saying issues that affect a renter’s well-being “may give rise to a civil action between landlord and tenant.”

The statement goes on to say, “The [Rent Stabilization] Department is also in the process of offering mediation services to facilitate resolution of complex landlord-tenants concerns, which will be available to fire victims.”

Ash from the Eaton Fire is visible on a windowsill that held potted plants. Health officials have said ash from the recent wildfires is toxic.

(

David Wagner

/

LAist

)

Renters unsure when they can return

Ryan Bell, the chair of the Pasadena Rental Housing Board, said he has heard from dozens of tenants who feel they've been left to fend for themselves.

“I think tenants are rightfully concerned,” Bell said. “Most tenants that I've talked to are simply saying to the landlord, ‘Can you please just give us a timeline? We just need to know: Do we need to stay with our folks for a month? Is it two weeks? Is it three months?’”

Renters insurance plans typically cover temporary relocation costs. But different policies have different coverage limits. And some tenants worry they’ll have to pay out of pocket if remediation work isn’t scheduled soon.

Marah Eakin and Andrew Morgan rent a home in Northwest Pasadena about one block from homes that burned down in Altadena. Since Jan. 7, they’ve been living in hotels and short-term rentals with their 6-year-old twins.

Morgan said their current Airbnb rental in South Pasadena costs about $2,000 per week.

“It costs more than our rent,” he said. “It's much smaller than our house. We don't have most of our stuff. We're just thrown way off balance. ... Like most families, we really thrive on a routine and a schedule. And it's just kind of out the window.”

The struggle to get clear answers 

Eakin and Morgan said their property management company — Cornerstone R/E Management, Inc. — went weeks without confirming whether their landlord would cover smoke remediation or when that work would happen.

Last month, a Cornerstone representative told the couple, “We are working on the basis that until told otherwise, properties are assumed livable,” according to emails sent to the tenants and reviewed by LAist. The representative said, unless anything changed, February rent would still be due.

“It feels like there's no good answer,” Eakin said. “Do we get a rental for a month? Do we get a rental for three months? Should we just cut bait and move out? There's nowhere to move, really, within driving distance of school. So I don't really know what to do.”

About an hour and a half after LAist emailed Cornerstone seeking comment about Eakin and Morgan’s situation, an employee contacted the couple to say a smoke and ash adjuster had been assigned to their case and they could soon receive a refund on their rent since the fire.

Trevor Barrocas, Cornerstone’s operating officer, emailed LAist with a statement: “We are working together with our clients and their insurance companies with the clear objective of: professionally assessing all damage, completing all necessary repairs and remediation; and, subsequently, returning displaced tenants to their homes as soon as possible.”

Big surf from distant hurricanes in the Pacific could bring coastal flooding to Southern California starting this weekend.

Hurricanes Polo and Odalys are expected to cause coastal erosion, flooding and high surf along Southern California's already battered coastline. Swells from Polo are expect to arrive as early as late Sunday and peak Monday and Tuesday.

Bryan Lewis, National Weather Service meteorologist, told LAist that high tides could reach 7 feet. He said Long Beach and Avalon are among the more vulnerable areas for potential flooding and erosion.

Long Beach and Los Angeles warned residents to prepare for potential flooding and other effects through at least Wednesday.

In early September, Hurricane Marie brought coastal erosion and flooding that led homes being red- and yellow-tagged in L.A. and Orange counties.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Friends & Family Flea, a new market from the team behind Maum Market, will make its debut Saturday in Koreatown. 

For organizer Arnold Byun, the launch is something of a homecoming. 

Nearly five years ago, Byun and his co-founder, Kioh Park, were living in Koreatown and spending months at Document Coffee Bar dreaming up what would eventually become Maum Market, the Asian makers market they launched in January 2022. The market now has a regular presence at ROW DTLA, where it hosts pop-up markets on Dock Street several times a year.

“The genesis of Maum Market is actually really embedded in Koreatown,” Byun, 31, told The LA Local. “And we have a lot of affection and personal history with Koreatown, so it’s a very personal thing for us just to return to our roots.” 

Most of the 24 vendors participating in the first Friends & Family Flea have some connection to Koreatown, Byun said. Some grew up in the neighborhood, some still live there and others have moved away but retain ties to the area. The vendor list includes apparel brands, artists, jewelry makers, beauty and wellness businesses and food vendors. 

“We’ve been trying to be pretty intentional about curating from the community as much as possible,” Byun said.

There will be plenty of food and shopping, including “sogeum-bbang,” or salt bread, tea, handmade candles, soaps and vintage clothing, as well as flash tattoos and burgers and fries from Love Hour. The LA Hwatu-Hanafuda Club will teach visitors about hwatu, the Korean deck of playing cards with roots in Japan. The club will also offer $5 tarot card readings.

Friends & Family Flea, a new market from the team behind Maum Market, will make its debut Saturday in Koreatown.

(

Courtesy Eena Cho

)

Eena Cho, founder of the LA Hwatu-Hanafuda Club, was born and raised in Koreatown. She remembers living with her mother in an apartment on Wilshire Boulevard and Vermont Avenue and volunteering at the senior center near Seoul International Park, where she spent time with older Korean residents.

She also grew up playing go-stop with her grandparents during Korean holidays, like Chuseok and Seollal. 

“That was a big part of my childhood,” said Cho, 24. “Another part is that living in LA where there’s so many different groups of people together, I remember my best friend Maria growing up, she was Mexican, and we would be playmates because both of our parents were working overtime.”

For Cho, joining Friends & Family Flea felt like a natural fit.

“Koreatown is a beautiful diaspora of many different cultures,” Cho said. “And I think that makes Koreatown, Koreatown.”

Friends & Family Flea, a new market from the team behind Maum Market, will make its debut Saturday in Koreatown.

(

Courtesy Eena Cho

)

The local focus is a big part of what Byun hopes will distinguish Friends & Family from other flea markets and fairs. He said organizers wanted to create something that “intentionally celebrates a specific neighborhood,” in this case, Koreatown. 

For the Koreatown market, that also means highlighting small businesses beyond the restaurants that often get the most attention.

“It’s more about, you know, where do we get our dry cleaning, where do we get our shoes done, or these kinds of services that I think don’t get highlighted as often as maybe restaurants do, but are really core and essential parts of a community business,” Byun said.

Byun’s own history with Koreatown also makes the neighborhood an especially fitting place to start.

His family immigrated to the South Bay from Korea in 2002, when he was 6. He remembers coming to Koreatown with his parents on the weekends for Korean meals and grocery trips.

Byun still thinks of the neighborhood as a second home for Korean immigrants, while appreciating how its community has grown more diverse.

“I’m just really happy to see it become a really beloved neighborhood,” he said.

The market is also giving back locally. Hats sold at the event will benefit the Koreatown Youth and Community Center, Byun said.

And this may not be a one-time run. If Saturday goes well, organizers hope to bring Friends & Family Flea back to Koreatown on a monthly basis. They also plan to offer discounted vendor fees to Koreatown residents.

“I feel like there was so much opportunity for us to really hone in and create something more hyperlocal and also really embed ourselves in the community as well,” Byun said.

When I lived in the UK, I worked on a BBC television show about birding. It was a strange experience as I couldn’t exactly book guests — “Hello Mr. Sparrow, could you be on location for an interview at 2 p.m.?”

So instead I spent a lot of time with the crew climbing up mountains with a large tripod on my shoulder. Did you know there’s a bird in the Scottish Highlands whose plumage turns white in winter to blend in with the snow? (It’s called a ptarmigan. Don’t pronounce the p.)

But it did mean I was attuned to British bird calls. I could hear something and pronounce solemnly: “Ah yes, that’s a lark. And that one's a chaffinch."

Moving to LA meant learning a new set of bird calls

When I moved to the U.S., however, it was a whole other story. I really didn’t recognize any of the bird calls. They were all so different. I just shrugged and figured they were part of the backdrop. But one day recently, a woman told me about a free app and said it was life-changing. "Hmm, I’ll see about that," I thought.

Merlin bird app

It’s called Merlin, from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and it’s kind of like Shazam for bird calls. As in, you click it, and it tells you what bird song you can hear around you. When I opened it in my backyard for the first time, a whole orchestra of bird sounds opened up around me. I admit: it was kind of life-changing.

Of course it first picked up a crow, which I know only too well, given its loud, raucous sound. But then it identified a house finch. Huh. Who knew they were in my backyard? And as I listened closely, I realized … I knew that sound! It’s the first thing I hear when I wake up at dawn, lovely and melodic.

The house finch, awakening the day.

(

Cornell Lab of Ornithology | Macaulay Library

)

So now when I open my eyes in the morning, I say, "Good morning, house finch, communing with fellow beings alive on a vibrant California morning!" It kicks off my day, although I guess I’ve been reading too much Mary Oliver.

The backyard birds you're probably hearing right now

But then other birds I didn’t know would pop up on my phone during the day, with names as intriguing as their calls: the spotted towhee, the orange-crowned warbler, or Cassin’s kingbird.

I mean, they do realize they’re in a backyard in Los Angeles, not some estate in Georgian England? My favorite for a while was the dark-eyed junco. Now we’re talking romantic heroes. Imagine him slyly popping across the apple tree limbs to call to you. Dark-Eyed Junco, at your service.

Dark-eyed junco, at your service.

(

Cornell Lab of Ornithology | Macaulay Library

)

Meet Swinhoe's white-eye, a non-native bird spreading across SoCal

And then there’s Swinhoe’s white-eye. Which sounds a little like an eye ailment, but there you go. It’s a tiny bright yellow bird with a white ring around each eye. So cute! I first noticed them when there were a bazillion of them in a tree outside my house. It was such an unusual sight that I mentioned it to a woman walking her dog, and we stood there, oohing and aahing, until we both realized we’d oohed a little too much, and it was time to go.

Swinhoe's white-eyes are not native to SoCal, but are thriving.

(

Cornell Lab of Ornithology | Macaulay Library

)

When I researched them, I was surprised to find they’re not native to SoCal. They’re actually pretty new to the area. There were just a handful in Orange County 20 years ago, probably having been brought over from Asia as pets and escaped. And now, they’re thriving and have spread everywhere from Baja to San Luis Obispo. Who knows where they’ll end up next? If anyone sees a chartreuse cutie in New York, let me know. It'll probably be very tired.

Yes, you can see I’ve become slightly annoying with my newfound bird interest. I’ll be asking my family what they want for dinner, and I’ll say, “Wait, is that the spotted towhee?” and turn to my phone, and my teenager will wrest it out of my hand and say, “Mom, be in the present!” Which is right. But my morning serenade as the birds come online one by one and greet the new day — well, that’s as present as you can be.

Walk through the automatic doors at the Carson Library and you’ll see on your left a 1973 painting called "Dominoes" by John Riddle.

Riddle, a prominent Black artist, has worked in the L.A. County Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum, and has been collected by Jesse Jackson and Roberta Flack.

Riddle's work was previously owned by the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company in West Adams. Over two decades, the company’s art director, William Pajaud, an L.A. artist himself, carefully collected hundreds of pieces of Black art. Each piece in the collection, Pajaud said, would be a chapter telling the story of African Americans in the U.S. The collection included oil paintings, watercolors, and sculptures in clay, wood and metal.

When Golden State Mutual Life Insurance shut down, the company sold most of the best pieces at a private auction in 2007, with some selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars. L.A. County was able to acquire about 120 works, including Riddle's piece.

To keep the works accessible to the public and free of charge, county officials chose four public libraries and three community centers to show the work. Earlier this year, the county arts department created a new website with a map to make them easier to find. The locations include the Golden State Mutual historic building in West Adams, plus:
:

Libraries

• Carson Library (Carson)
• A.C. Bilbrew Library (Willowbrook)
• Masao W. Satow Library (Gardena)
• View Park Bebe Moore Campbell Library (View Park/Windsor Hills)
  

Community centers:

• Curtis Tucker Behavioral Health Center Health Services (Inglewood)
• Willowbrook Senior Center Aging and Disabilities (Willowbrook)
• Mark Ridley-Thomas Behavioral Health Center Health Services (on the Martin Luther King, Jr. Medical Campus).

“All of these are county-owned spaces that are available, accessible to the public and to patrons to be able to live with the works, learn about the works, see the works, learn about the works,” said Kristin Sakoda, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture.

Dominoes by John Riddle. The painting was part of the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance collection but is now part of the Los Angeles County Civic Art Collection.

(

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez/LAist

)

As you walk past the checkout desk at the Carson Library, toward the teen section, you’ll see another remarkable piece from the county’s holdings. It’s a two-foot-tall sculpture made from one piece of mahogany. It’s called "The Embrace" by artist Elizabeth Catlett, whose work is in the collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, among many other institutions. Catlett depicted two people hugging, their faces and bodies fused together, their eyes looking at the viewer.

Detail of El Abrazo (The Embrace) by Elizabeth Catlett.

(

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez/LAist

)

In the auction catalogue for the Golden State Collection, Catlett wrote: “I still work figuratively, trying to express emotion through abstract form, color, line, and space. I attempt to reach out to ordinary people who have little or no experience or understanding of art principles, and extend to them what I may feel about a subject."

Ancestral Fragments by Stanley Wilson.

(

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez/LAist

)

Meanwhile at A.C. Bilbrew Library, north of Compton, there’s a piece by Charles White, who lived in L.A. County for decades and mentored many artists in the region. His paintings and drawings in the 1960s took on the issues of the Black Civil Rights Movement, and that led well-known Black Americans like Nat King Cole and Eartha Kitt to buy his art.

County officials are hopeful that the communities around these neighborhoods enjoy the art’s benefits, including “mental health, in our education, our youth development, our sense of inclusion and belonging,” Sakoda said.