I am so damn fed up with writing about empty homes burning, but what am I supposed to do - stop? In Los Angeles? Honey, please.
A long-empty, boarded-up house caught on fire yesterday afternoon. LAFD mistakenly reported the address as 506 N. St. Andrews Place, but 506 looks pretty well-maintained to me.
I received a report that the correct address was 509 N. St. Andrews Place, across the street and next to an empty lot. That tracks with the picture on this CBS News story about the fire, showing a burned Craftsman house next to an overgrown vacant lot. (Also, 506 is a single-story Colonial-ish house with a completely different roof line.)
I didn’t have to dig too deep to find out that just a few years ago, 509 WAS a lovely 1911 Craftsman house with recent improvements. It sold off market in April 2020, but a listing of sorts can be seen here.
Look at the picture in the listing. The house, fence, and front yard are neat as a pin and look like they’ve been exceptionally well cared for.
Now look at Street View. In December 2020, the yard is getting overgrown. July 2022 shows what could be junk piling up behind the fence. By September 2025 - the most recent picture - the property looks like crap. The house is barely visible through the overgrown foliage, there is junk piled up high enough to peek over the top of the fence, and the formerly well-maintained fence is fading unevenly, tagged, and appears to have possible damage by the gate.
ZIMAS backs up 509’s downward spiral. The first complaint - auto repair on the premises - is from October 2020, just six months after the house sold. Complaints from October 2025 suggest the house was vacant and unsecured, and complaints from January echo the house’s empty state and reference the junk piled high in the yard.
A demolition permit was issued in 2022. Obviously, the house wasn’t demolished at the time. The permit for the required sewer cap expired in January.
Huh.
I decided to look into the vacant lot next door, formerly 505 N. St. Andrews. Sources disagree on whether 505 last changed hands in 2016 or 2020, but someone was already planning to demolish the house at least as early as 2015.
A permit was issued for a new 4-story building over a year ago. But, we’ll see how that goes. This city is rife with empty lots and unfinished buildings.
I do have to wonder if whoever owns 509 might look to flip it to whoever owns 505 - or if both owners might want to flip to a third party together. A smart developer could combine the two lots and build a bigger apartment complex than the one planned for 505.
Still, 509 could have - really, should have - been loaded onto trucks and moved to Altadena. The previous owners clearly loved that house. Someone who lost their home to the Eaton fire would have loved it, too.
Updated 3/11: Unfortunately, it was worse than the original reports indicated. The fire spread to, and destroyed, the house next door, displacing Pastor Juan Galicia and nine family members who all lived the house (the whole family was at church when the fire began.) Two of the family’s six dogs died; a third dog is reportedly at the vet. (Updated 3/22: the third dog did not survive.)
The family had been warning city officials about the squatters next door for OVER A YEAR. Their pleas fell on apathetic ears.
Keith Johnson, longtime CD13 resident and former journalist, spoke with Pastor Galicia. View the reel here. Two different community members have started GoFundMe campaigns to help the family; find them here and here.
Infuriating