At 6:17 on a Saturday morning, a cracked ceramic tile slid off the pile in Maya Torres’s driveway and shattered against the concrete. The sound rang through the quiet block in Pasadena. Maya froze, holding a dusty box of old kitchen handles, while her neighbor’s porch light clicked on. By noon, the renovation crew would arrive. Before then, the driveway had to be cleared of cabinets, plaster, broken tile, and the strange collection of objects that had accumulated during three decades in the house.
