At 7:12 on a warm Saturday morning, the dumpster in Elena Ruiz’s driveway was already full. A splintered kitchen cabinet leaned over its rim, drywall scraps poked into the pale sky, and a long strip of carpet flapped whenever a truck passed on the street. Inside the 1940s bungalow in Pasadena, the renovation crew had just uncovered another layer of old flooring. Elena stood at the doorway with a mug of cooling coffee and watched dust drift through a blade of sunlight.
