At 6:17 on a Saturday morning, the first crash came from the old kitchen cabinets. A door hit the driveway, bounced once, and landed beside a mound of plaster, cracked tile, and sun-bleached wood. In the quiet Los Angeles neighborhood, a dog barked behind a fence. Above the rooftops, the sky was only beginning to turn pink.
For Elena Ruiz, the sound meant progress. It also meant trouble. Her family’s 1940s home in Eagle Rock was finally getting the renovation it needed, but the garage was already packed, the side yard was filling fast, and the contractor had just warned her that the crew would be back Monday.
