A little over three years ago, I dug into the demolition of 570 North Normandie Avenue, which burned after just two months of being left empty and improperly secured (case in point: in the photo above, you can clearly see the wide-open gate with a posted demolition notice).

On the three-year anniversary of the fire, prompted by a comment from a fellow Redditor, I dug back into the fire.

The Redditor commented:

You should look into 570 N Normandie - the developer who bought it left it open intentionally, resulting in a crazy squatting situation. The 1920’s house was full of stuff from the previous tenants and there were people in and out 24/7 taking everything. The developer refused to secure the property.

It burned down shortly after - I talked to the mail man who called in the fire and he said he saw people pull up and light it on fire.

His description of those people matched two guys I had met days before who showed up and ran German shepherds through the building to clear it of squatters.

So, I sent a CPRA request to LAFD.

I’m screenshotting the report below. In case anyone can’t view the image, it lists the cause of ignition as “Undetermined after investigation” and the heat source as “other”.

Listing the cause as “undetermined” seemed rather odd, given that the postal worker who called in the fire claimed to have seen it being set.

I requested audio and a transcript of the 911 call, hoping to confirm that the witness had indeed reported the suspected arsonists, knowing the records might be unavailable. Many law enforcement agencies don’t keep recordings of 911 calls for very long.

Speaking of law enforcement, did you know that they can opt out of providing records?

Now, I can understand why they might do that. I haven’t forgotten that San Francisco’s then-Mayor, Dianne Feinstein, foolishly revealed key evidence in the Night Stalker case to the public, which severely hampered the investigation and probably lengthened Richard Ramirez’s horrific crime spree.

Anyway, the LAPD invoked law enforcement privilege, so I can’t confirm the content of the 911 call.

I sent a follow-up email to LAFD, mentioning the 911 call and asking if it was ever investigated as arson. This is the response I received:

Hello,

If you have any evidence that arson was committed, please email us and we will forward it to the arson department for further investigation.

Best regards,

LAFD

And before anyone suggests that the city might still be looking into the fire…California has a statute of limitations on arson and most other felonies. (Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.)

It’s three years.

That’s right - the statute of limitations for ARSON, which is a very dangerous and highly destructive FELONY, is typically only three years.

Since the clock ran out in July, I’m not so sure that anyone would be convicted of anything if evidence turned up now. But if anyone out there does have evidence, please reach out to LAFD just in case.

570 North Normandie Avenue, East Hollywood.

The billion-dollar Metropolis mixed-use/condo development, which takes up a full city block bordered by Francisco Street, 8th Street, James M. Wood Boulevard, and the 110, has long been rumored to be empty, or at least largely so.

Kim cross-referenced property records with United States Postal Service data and determined that of the 822 condo residences, 281 are still owned by the developer, China-based Greenland USA.

I am hard to impress. This is truly remarkable work that puts quite a few of LA’s louder, flashier media outlets to shame (naming no names here, but if you’ve been paying attention, you already know).

Anyway, if the embedded video below isn’t working, you can always click here.

800 block of Francisco Street, DTLA.

Remember 359 Patton Street, the 1885 cottage that recently caught fire?

359 and its neighbor 353/351 have been neglected for some time (photos in the linked post bear me out on that). “Scout” provided these updated pictures; note the “Notice of Demolition” sign.

Another neighbor commented on the previous post:

In case the image isn’t loading, the text says “There was another fire next door on his other property last week. The owner is also is a member of the echo park neighborhood council.”

I won’t be doxxing anyone today, but I have serious questions about how someone who doesn’t take care of their properties could even theoretically get to be on a neighborhood council. Especially in Echo Park, one of the city’s oldest existing neighborhoods, when it’s two Victorian-era properties being allowed to fall into such appalling disrepair. Why own property in a historic neighborhood if you don’t respect the historic charm that makes it unique and special?

Pride of ownership is dead in Los Angeles, along with accountability and common sense. Before the fire damage, these buildings could have been moved and restored. Heck, I would have taken them in a heartbeat if I owned vacant land.

Demo permits are still pending. For 359, there’s a note: “DEMO EXISITNG SFD. **Comply with Department Order effective date 06/16/2026. **” (The spelling error is theirs, obviously.) June 16 is two days after the original post, and eight days after the fire. I’m guessing LADBS finally had to say something to the owner.

I still have not seen any evidence of a replacement project, let alone an approved one.

It gets worse: neighboring 363 Patton Street had a heavy fire on July 31. It, too, burned on June 8 - and again on June 17.

No one should have to live next to this. Period.

359 Patton Street, Echo Park.

If you don’t want to live next to urban blight and have a generous housing budget, the neighborhoods closest to Griffith Park are a good bet. Hollywoodland, Hollywood Dell, Silver Lake, Los Feliz, Franklin Hills, and Atwater Village have relatively few abated or abandoned buildings.

However, some exist. This one is across the street from the Philosophical Research Society, if you can believe it.

A neighbor reached out about this 1960 dingbat apartment building, telling me the following:

I’ve watched this building slowly fall apart over the last few years. I think there’s structural issues that the city flagged and it seems to be fated for a demo by neglect situation. There’s been demo notices on the breeze blocks for at least a year. I wondered why there wasn’t any chainlink around it so I snooped around and it seems there’s still one tenant there. All the other units boarded up but very clearly people have come and gone— broken glass etc.

Well, not fencing off the building makes sense if there is still a tenant in place, but if glass is getting broken, that’s still a security concern and a potential squatter/fire risk. I hope the remaining tenant is safe.

The neighbor is correct: demolition permits have been pending since 2024 (none have been issued yet).

There are code complaints, too:

10/25/21 HAZARDOUS CONDITIONS

1/6/22 BUILDINGS IN GENERAL NEED OF REPAIR

9/11/25 ABANDONED OR VACANT BUILDING LEFT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

And as you might expect, all of them were referred to LAHD and closed. (Does LAHD even do anything around here?)

I couldn’t tell you what the owner’s long-term plan is (besides “tear it down”), since there doesn’t seem to be a replacement project planned for the site. I do know that this is a good location in a nice neighborhood, and it would not be difficult to flip the lot to a builder or investor.

Having said that…my friends at Esotouric discovered that LADBS’ building-permit feed stopped updating on the 18th, meaning permits might be issued with no public record until and unless the feed is fixed.

Transparency is the law. Being able to find out what’s going on is your right.

Still…who is going to compel LADBS to fix the feed? Who even has the authority to do that? Must Angelenos file a massive class-action suit to get any satisfaction when city departments don’t do their jobs?

3346-3350 Griffith Park Boulevard, Los Feliz.

On this day three years ago, I delved into the demolition by neglect of 570 North Normandie Avenue, which burned after just two months of being left vacant and unsecured.

As it turns out, the story gets even worse.

City Attorney candidate John McKinney called out the preventable fire at 509 North St. Andrews Place in a recent video. In a related Reddit thread, Redditor u/flyman241 posted the following:

You should look into 570 N Normandie - the developer who bought it left it open intentionally, resulting in a crazy squatting situation. The 1920’s house was full of stuff from the previous tenants and there were people in and out 24/7 taking everything. The developer refused to secure the property.

It burned down shortly after - I talked to the mail man who called in the fire and he said he saw people pull up and light it on fire.

His description of those people matched two guys I had met days before who showed up and ran German shepherds through the building to clear it of squatters.

(Bolding and spacing are mine.)

I’ll be following up with LAFD to see if this was ever investigated as an arson case.

I’m not holding my breath, of course.

570 North Normandie Avenue, East Hollywood.

Join the discussion!

Over a year ago, the elegant El Patio apartment building at 114 South New Hampshire Avenue began to accumulate code enforcement complaints. Three months ago, it had the first of three fires.

There’s no permit application on file for a replacement project, but in my experience, when it looks and smells like demolition by neglect, it usually is.

According to neighbor @des_em:

I live one block from this, and it's been such a nightmare for the neighborhood. They didn't secure the building initially, so it quickly became a hub for gang activity. There's been 3 different fires of varying size and break-ins almost every night. Clearly a demolition by neglect situation, and I feel so bad for the folks who live next door to it because it's become a hazard to that entire area.

I have also wondered what the justification for emptying the building was. If you find out, I would love to know!

Well, waiting to flip to an investor is always a possibility in Los Angeles.

@des_em adds:

The entire system is such a hellish bureaucracy. I’ve reported the building multiple times to multiple departments, and everyone just passes the buck or ignores me. I was already going to start pressing Heather Hutt’s office to fix our damn street lights, so I’ll just add this to my list of grievances.

The building is fenced now, but that doesn’t magically reverse the fire damage or the trouble it’s caused for the neighbors (housed and not).

Rampart Village isn’t a trendy or cool neighborhood, and it does border beautiful-but-troubled Westlake, but it’s also surrounded by East Hollywood, Koreatown, Silver Lake, and a possibly-gentrifying (God, I hope not) Historic Filipinotown. There may very well come a day when it’s the new Echo Park.

If you are dealing with a situation like this in your neighborhood and complaints are going nowhere, please get in touch with your council office planning and housing deputies and demand answers. Can’t hurt, might help.

Contacting the media is also an option. Local officials who tolerate this recklessness and fail to help their constituents deserve to be called out on the carpet and publicly shamed.

I said it three months ago and I’ll say it until I’m hoarse: NO ONE DESERVES THIS.

114 South New Hampshire Avenue, Rampart Village.

The intersection of Carpenter Avenue and Moorpark Street is in Studio City, but it’s close enough to North Hollywood that I wasn’t terribly surprised to see an alert about a vacant house catching on fire.

Regarding why it’s empty, there isn’t much to see here. Permit filings show that whoever owns it intends to replace the existing one-story house with a two-story house, pool, and detached ADU.

A few things are weird here, though.

First, while a demolition notice was posted in the front yard at least as far back as October (per Street View), I couldn’t find any evidence of a demolition permit being issued. (Great, now I’ve got to make a public records request for demo permits, too. More on that in a minute.)

Second, the property doesn’t seem to have been fenced off. Studio City is a nice neighborhood, but that doesn’t magically make it immune to trespassers, squatters, or arsonists.

Third, I hit a wall trying to look up property data in ZIMAS, which thinks 4408 Carpenter Avenue doesn’t exist (it does).

I was able to pull data via a workaround taught to me by Mike Callahan (thanks again, Mike). Strangely, ZIMAS shows NO address or ZIP code (that will come as a surprise to the Postal Service) and NO data on the existing house (which isn’t gone YET).

I’ve looked up many a parcel that used to have a building on it, and the parcel data is always there even if the building is gone. Not this time.

Can we just talk about the fact that LA’s public records access needs work? This isn’t the first time ZIMAS has had incorrect or missing data, and recently I had to resort to requesting data from the city’s IT department because Eunisses’ office couldn’t be bothered to reply (AGAIN). (Read about my headache-inducing CPRA request from 2024 - still unfulfilled! - here.)

Anyway, fires suck. If you are the owner of 4408 Carpenter Avenue, please consider fencing off the existing house before squatters or arsonists create a problem for your neighbors (and believe me, they will - more than half of this blog is about preventable fires).

4408 Carpenter Avenue, Studio City.

Three early-20th-century houses stand empty on East 22nd Street in Central-Alameda. They’re fenced off and slated for demolition, but are in good enough repair to be moved elsewhere.

Curiously, there isn’t a record of the required notice to Councilman Curren Price (who is facing felony corruption charges, but we’ll get into that another time).

There isn’t a demolition permit application on file for 1559.

There IS a pending application for 1563, along with an application to build a 7-story project across seven lots. Well, that would explain the empty houses.

It’s the same story for 1567, and 1575 has far more permit detail (granted, 1575 has been an empty lot since at least 2008).

Anyway, the houses very nearly burned down two days ago when a trash fire reached 1559’s roof. LAFD knocked the fire down in 18 minutes, saving the structure - for now.

Moving these good and useful homes would clear the lots for the 7-story complex without wasting them. Why leave them to burn?

If you are the owner of these houses, PLEASE contact Omgivning. Somebody in Altadena would be thrilled and grateful to receive one.

1559-1567 East 22nd Street, Central-Alameda.

Six months ago, I wondered why an incident that received an LAFD response wasn’t on LAFD’s Alerts page. Firefighters were on the scene, and there were FOUR videos posted to Citizen.

I still don’t know why it wasn’t on the Alerts page. I do know that three days ago, the boarded-up yellow houses at 1517 and 1523 8th Street caught on fire again (thanks again, Father Dylan). It made the Alerts page this time, but with an incorrect house number that doesn’t even exist.

ZIMAS shows the houses last changed hands in 2019. Could this be real estate speculation?

Westlake, formerly the nicest neighborhood in the city, breaks my heart on a regular basis. It doesn’t have to be this way - but this is how things are when owners are allowed to neglect their properties and the city doesn’t care enough to enforce its own laws.

1517-1523 W. 8th St., Westlake.

LAFD and various news outlets (that I will NOT be linking to) reported a carport fire at 214 Benton Way.

All of them had the wrong address.

There is a 214 Benton Way, but it’s part of a multifamily complex that has a couple of small garages out in front.

A neighbor reached out with photos. The fire took place at THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR, 206 Benton Way.

It’s a big, sunny yellow, two-story house, now boarded up. You can’t miss it.

In sharp contrast to my usual content, this doesn’t appear to be a typical case of “neglected/vacant house catches on fire, probably from squatters”. The few code complaints on file are nearly a decade old, the house wasn’t listed for sale and had no permits on file, and the neighbor reports recently seeing a family living inside the house (hope they’re okay). Street View photos (which are admittedly a bit dated) show what appears to be a well-maintained house.

206 Benton Way doesn’t have a garage. There isn’t even a driveway. The house was built in 1907, when few Angelenos had cars, and it’s perched well above street level. The house is accessed by a (gated) staircase. Satellite photos do show some sort of outbuilding (back house? Storage shed? Laundry room?) behind the house, but with no driveway and no alley, you’d have to lift a car in and out with a crane, so I doubt that the building in question is a garage.

Now, I can understand LAFD getting the occasional address or building type wrong - they’re busy putting out fires and saving lives (ESPECIALLY in Westlake). The occasional detail may get muddled.

News outlets, however? They are supposed to know better. And the sad fact of the matter is that a lot of local news sites don’t seem to do much, if ANY, fact-checking.

We deserve better media outlets. Period.

206 Benton Way, Westlake.

“Scout” lives in Echo Park/Filipinotown and helps out around the community.

Scout reached out with news of another fire - and photos indicating a pattern of neglect at the property in question. (Thanks, Scout.)

wanted to let you know about yet another fire , 359 N Patton St. Both that address and the yellow/white house next to it, 353/351 are owned by the same person . Lots of history I can share with this, stuff I've learned from neighbors....short version is this....I reported to LADBS as a courtesy to an elder on 6/8....it burned on 6/8 from a squatter . The owner is a holy terror apparently and has been allowed to leave unsecured properties and squatters moved in. Neighbors have seen the young woman recently and saw her leaving before the fire. The owner used to have a neighbor that he had an agreement with....caretake the properties and he stayed rent free. He kept the properties secure, cleaned and free of squatters. Owner and he had an argument, he was removed by police. I've emailed CD1 and asked for pushing this through to at least clean and secure for the neighbors benefit. Attaching a few photos for you.

[Ed. note: Well, at least the CD1 offices are willing to respond to SOMEBODY.]

I looked into building records and found a pending demolition permit application from 2023. Code complaints date back to 2008, but really ramped up in 2021.

Since the same person owns 351 and 353 as well, I looked those up and wasn’t surprised to see pending demolition permit applications from 2023 and 2024. There are similar code complains from 2020 and 2024, but not nearly as many as at number 359.

One application includes the words “DEMO SFR AND ALSO DEMO DETACHED SINGLE GARAGE TO BUILD AFFORDABLE HOUSING.” There isn’t any evidence of an approved replacement project for the site in ZIMAS, and experience has taught me to be wary of developer promises.

It astounds me - and disgusts me - that there are people who feel entitled to let their properties fall into the kind of disrepair that negatively impacts the neighbors. It is one thing to put off fixing a squeaky floorboard because you don’t have time to deal with it. It is another to let trash pile up and leave a house improperly secured, even if you do intend to demolish what’s there now.

Nobody - I repeat, NOBODY - deserves to live next to a blighted property. Period.

359 Patton Street, Echo Park.

P.S. 359 was built in 1885. 353/351 dated to 1893. While they weren’t as fancy as the lost mansions of Bunker Hill, somebody who appreciates older homes could still have taken them off the owner’s hands, moved them, and restored them. But nooooo….

In theory, the Los Angeles Housing Department is responsible for “[solving] unmet housing needs…[balancing] services that regulate and assist both landlords and tenants in the rental housing market…administering housing policy and leading programs that produce and safeguard affordable rental housing…guided by a belief that all Angelenos should have equitable access to housing and to the opportunities that a safe, stable home can deliver.” That’s from LAHD’s own website.

In practice, however, that is NOT what’s happening.

Longtime readers may recall that LAHD was complicit in how bad the Lourine Court situation became (the above photo is of one of the fires at the complex). The Department’s General Manager, Ann Sewill, left in 2024, but unfortunately the Department does not seem to have improved.

I know I don’t need to tell my readers that Controller Kenneth Mejia’s latest transparency project lists the city’s top 100 problem rental properties, and I’m sure I don’t need to tell Eastside residents that Wyvernwood ranks high on the list.

When Wyvernwood was built in 1939, it was based on “Garden City Movement” principles that gave renters fresh air, sunlight, and open space. Garden complexes were meant to be a healthy, community-oriented alternative to filthy, overcrowded slums. However, modern-day Wyvernwood renters are dealing with a landlord that has racked up a whopping 225 complaints and a Housing Department that is actively failing to help them.

This piece from the Boyle Heights Beat made my blood boil. Here are a few excerpts:

Once inside, protesters waited about 40 minutes to meet with a housing department staff member to discuss the closure of “hundreds of complaints” from Wyvernwood residents. Advocates said they were ready to present rental contracts and paperwork they believe show reductions of services at the apartment complex.

An employee never came out to meet them.

Wow, cowardly AND horribly unprofessional!

…Wyvernwood residents deal with moldy roofs, faulty repairs, and a lack of affordable parking spaces that have been privatized.

Please watch this CBS news clip on the unsustainable parking problems in Boyle Heights BEFORE commenting on the parking situation. Not everyone has the luxury of going carless.

The complaints include allegations of health code violations, failure to make repairs, insurance fraud, reduction of services and a proposed online-only payment system that would disadvantage aging tenants without bank accounts.

I would like to remind everyone that a lot of those online payment systems charge processing fees. Also, I’m not sure how good the internet connectivity situation is at Wyvernwood, but I’d guess that when it stops working, it probably doesn’t get fixed promptly (I used to live in a neighborhood that was not a priority to the only available internet service provider, trust me on that). That could create a real problem if the internet goes out right before the rent is due.

Oh, and California Civil Code 1947.3. (a) states: (1) Except as provided in paragraph (2), a landlord or a landlord's agent shall allow a tenant to pay rent and deposit of security by at least one form of payment that is neither cash nor electronic funds transfer. (Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.)

Boy, all these complaints and NO accountability? What is LAHD even doing with all of this information? What are they doing with Angelenos’ hard-earned tax dollars?

No neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles is immune to demolition by neglect.

While it isn’t nearly as common in Silver Lake as it is in, say, nearby Hollywood, it’s happening there too.

A neighbor reached out regarding 2301-2309 Kent Street/801 Waterloo Street, formerly a stately 1917 Craftsman-style multifamily home.

The rent-stabilized building survived for more than a century, including two world wars, changes to the neighborhood when the freeway came through a few blocks away, and the rough old days when Silver Lake had a sketchy reputation. Like so many other buildings, it did not survive being left empty. You guessed it - another fire.

Code enforcement complaints of “abandoned or vacant building left open to the public” began in February. Unsurprisingly, those complaints were deemed “no violation”, “referred to general”, or “referred to Housing Department”.

In other words, typical buck-passing from bureaucrats who have no respect for the city that issues their paychecks.

The building was slated for demolition at least as recently as July 2024, but no permit for demolition or construction has been issued. This is yet another example of why I simply cannot take (most) developer promises at face value - sometimes, the planned project doesn’t get built.

Does that give the owner of the property carte blanche to just leave the existing buildings unattended and insufficiently secured - particularly when it could have been moved? Not in my book.

The neighbor told me that the fire began around 3 (LAFD says 4:21) in the morning. So, in addition to putting neighboring buildings at risk of catching on fire and releasing toxic soot and smoke into the air, the neighbors were deprived of sleep, too. Lovely.

Good neighbors don’t neglect their properties, let alone make them someone else’s problem.

2301-2309 Kent Street/801 Waterloo Street, Silver Lake.

While any building fire is bad, a fire in an office supply store can easily reignite due to the high amount of paper and cardboard. This fire did indeed re-ignite, causing the roof to collapse. A firefighter was injured, and the fire rained ash down on Hope Street for hours.

The cause of the fire is, as always, under investigation. But it might be prudent for investigators to look at the building next door, if for no other reason than to rule it out.

1219-1221 South Hope Street doesn’t have any permits on file or any ZIMAS complaints within the past decade. However, it is boarded up and, curiously, labeled as “Cbre Prime Development Opportunity” on Google Maps. I’m posting a screenshot below in case this gets edited later.

(CBRE, which is based in Dallas and New York but has several offices in LA, is the world’s largest commercial real estate investment and service company.)

What I suspect, since it happens with alarming frequency in Los Angeles (although we’ll have to wait for LAFD’s investigators to do their thing), is that squatters, vandals, or other troublemakers got into the vacant building and caused the fire. Graffiti-tagged plywood boards scream “this building is unoccupied”.

If you’ve been paying attention, you may recall that this is the same block of Hope Street where Relevant Group illegally (and savagely) gutted the Morrison Hotel, which contributed to the severity of the damage when it caught on fire on 12/26/24.

The unfinished, notoriously vandalized Oceanwide Plaza towers are also visible from the site.

Angelenos deserve better than this.

1225 South Hope Street, South Park.

(Photo by Alhambra Preservation Group)

In 2020, a 1908 Craftsman house and an adjacent 1923 bungalow court escaped the wrecking ball.

Now, they’re in danger again due to a proposed density bonus project.

These homes need not be hauled off to the landfill in pieces. They can be saved and moved - clearing the lots while keeping good and useful buildings available to people who need replacement homes just ten miles away in Altadena.

The Planning Commission Zoom meeting is TONIGHT, May 4, at 7pm. It’s item number 7 on the agenda (if you need to call in, the agenda has instructions). If you value getting neighbors re-housed or not letting good buildings go to waste, join in and ask that the buildings be moved, not destroyed.

Zoom webinar link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82735405361

Webinar ID: 827 3540 5361

234 South Marguerita Avenue, Alhambra.

237 South Curtis Avenue, Alhambra.

1232 South Bonnie Brae Street has caught on fire before. The big 1902 Craftsman, converted to a triplex years ago, had a permit issued in 2021 for re-framing the roof in the aftermath of a fire…and just six months ago, a quality review for fire repair (likely for the back house) was completed.

When the Hollywood Center Motel had a fire recently, it was torn down VERY quickly due to safety concerns. Yet, this triplex was left standing for nearly 10 years after a devastating fire on August 10, 2016. The fire also displaced 41 people (32 adults and nine children) and two dogs (a third dog and a cat did not survive).

I suspect that there wasn’t a push to tear down these homes because Pico-Union is full of working Angelenos (many of them immigrants). Hollywood, however, attracts tourists. The Hollywood Center Motel came down in record time; this triplex kept racking up code complaints after the roofing permit was issued.

The triplex has a metal fence (no chain-link here!), but it wasn’t enough to keep out squatters. It caught on fire again today. Two squatters reportedly had to be rescued, and three had to be treated by LAFD paramedics.

Will it ever stop?

1230-1232 South Bonnie Brae Street, Pico-Union.

1820-1822 West 12th Place, Pico-Union. (Note: Street View pulls up 1821, which is across the street.)

I don’t trust Mayor Bass, and after reading about an alarming conflict of interest in her proposed budget, I don’t believe anyone should.

LA Material’s Julia Wick noticed a proposition to allow home-sharing businesses to pre-pay bed tax ahead of the Olympics. And it gets sketchier. Of particular note is a report which advised against the proposition. It “disappeared”, replaced by a significantly shorter report downplaying the original report’s findings.

(If anyone out there can get their hands on the missing original report, there is such a thing as uploading it to archive.org - just saying. I’ll be only too happy to share it far and wide.)

Getting into bed with Airbnb is a huge conflict of interest for a city with a vacancy/misuse problem, tens of thousands of still-displaced fire victims, and thousands of still-empty Project Homekey units (that Angelenos already paid a $#@%&*! fortune for).

It’s a pity that City Hall wasn’t designed with some sort of flushing mechanism.

Anyway, there was another empty-house fire in Harvard Heights the other day.

1970 South La Salle Avenue is (was?) a big, beautiful 1907 Craftsman, despite the deferred maintenance. (The initial LAFD Alert reports it was 2008 South La Salle, on the next block, but 2008 is a 1960s multifamily building with only one code complaint on file, and it appears to be in good condition. The incident was updated with the correct address.)

There is a list of code complaints, nearly all from the last two years. The usual suspects - unpermitted construction, abandoned/vacant building open to the public, and “building or wall that could fall down” - are all present.

Hoping to find an explanation for the building’s boarded-up state, I dug more, and promptly discovered that the house was not only listed for sale VERY recently, but that it was under contract.

Whether the house is still under contract isn’t yet clear, but if the buyer is a speculator, fire damage won’t matter to them. It was listed as a fixer, which isn’t a deterrent to home seekers on a modest budget, but fire damage might be too much for some buyers to handle.

I suspect the listing was at least partially generated by an AI chatbot, since one sentence reads “Boarded windows and a fenced front contribute to vintage curb appeal.” I’m screenshotting it here in case the listing gets edited.

Boarded windows are charming? Since when?

I wonder how much money the city chooses to leave on the table each year when it fails to penalize those who abuse the privilege of owning property through neglect (or through misuse such as turning an SRO into a pricey hotel.)

To paraphrase punk band Bad Religion, Los Angeles real estate shenanigans are the crummiest book I’ve ever read - there isn’t a hook, just a lot of cheap shots, pictures to shock, and characters an amateur would never dream up.

1970 South La Salle Avenue, Harvard Heights.