Smoke damage is a major problem for Altadena residents who didn't lose their homes

A year after California’s urban wildfires, I’m focusing on a single block in Altadena, which happened to be my street where we lost a house. Some days, however, I worry it’s even more complicated for my neighbors who had houses that remained standing in the smoke and soot.

On my single block, 15 houses burned up but 10 are still there. They are potentially habitable, but not before knowing what and how to clean.

“It feels like I have a second full-time job that I'm not being paid for, and I did not ask for,” said Ellen, my neighbor. “And I don't have the background. You know, me, with a standing home.”

That’s saying something, because this neighbor's day job is manager of a public health project. Ellen is also the energetic “block captain” for my neighbors and me — sharing information, bringing us together to eat and to commiserate. Some neighbors asked for first names only here, so they could speak more freely, with insurance and other financial matters in flux.

“The things that I need to understand are around toxic contaminations and remediation and restoration, and I don't have a chemistry background,” Ellen said.

Ellen has had to study up, reading scientific papers and attending webinars. But it’s all in the name of returning to a safe home.

“I don't want to go home and worry that I'm gonna end up with cancer or a respiratory illness, but I ache in my heart to go home,” she said.

When we caught up in late fall, she was waiting for results from an industrial hygienist.

“We know what we have tested positive for, which includes, oh my gosh, I couldn't even tell you all the things: asbestos, lead, beryllium, cyanide,” she said.

Ellen’s husband Erick is a senior engineer for NASA. He added to the list:

“Cadmium, chromium, manganese, lithium. I may be missing a heavy metal in there somewhere,” he said with a laugh.

They’ve paid for this testing out of pocket so far. Ellen said the insurance people told her no testing was necessary before professional cleaning because the soot is visible, and you’ll know if it’s clean by eyeballing it.

The problem with that argument is that this smoke wasn’t from natural trees and brush. This smoke contains a suburb, with all its stuff and its junk.

“And all those contaminants inside of them have become part of the smoke and gotten into the house,” Ellen said.

An analysis of six years of wildfires in California prior to this disaster looked at which houses tend to survive and which don’t. The biggest predictor: The newer the house, the better its chances. My house was 99 years old.

But my neighbor Terika, a child support officer for Los Angeles County, has a house across the street that was built a year and a half before the fires. She’s back in. In fact, she got back in seven months after the fire, in August.

“The house is still there,” she said. “I paid out of pocket to have it cleaned, and then I'll fight with the insurance company later to get back what I can.”

She had the money in savings to pay for that cleaning.

“And thank God I had it, but I do want to get it back,” Terika said.

Some of that money went to a business model in major demand around Altadena: post-fire remediation.

“They removed the insulation, cleaned out the attic, replaced the insulation, ran machines in the house for maybe three, four days,” Terika said. She had to replace the couches, the carpets, the mattresses, all of that.

Terika’s retired mom, Mary, lives with her husband Nate next door, in a separate house that also made it through standing. Mary also ponied up the cash for decontamination. Some insurance money was promised, but since she had a loan, the bank controls the payout.

“We got the money, but it went to the mortgage company, and then [Nate’s] got to send in his information so we can get the money,” Mary said.

Across the street is another standing home, that of my neighbors Rebecca and Chris.

“It’s exactly as the day we left it,” Rebecca said. “We were about to have some pizza that night before we left, and we left our plates. And I have a little container of hot honey that’s right where we left it. If you were to pick it up, you would just see a circle of white inside and then soot all around it.

“It's a mess. It smells terrible. I know it's contaminated. I'm scared to go in without a mask.”

Rebecca and Chris are both writers and actors without the background to deal with an insurance company that Chris says has canceled their fire coverage. The reason given? Because a middleman — his insurance broker — quit the business. It’s not clear the cancellation is legal, but it’s a living nightmare. His hopes for this new year?

“Right now, it’s like a time capsule,” Chris said. “It's like the same glass of water when we left the house is still on the counter. And I just want to clean it and to just get past the insurance process. I want to get past that.”