At 6:17 on a Saturday morning, a mattress blocked half of the driveway in Pasadena, a cracked bookcase leaned against the garage, and a mountain of remodeling debris filled the rest. Maria stood at the curb with a mug of coffee cooling in her hands. In two hours, her parents would arrive from Glendale to help prepare the old family house for sale. In four, the photographer was due. The cleanup had sounded simple when she started: clear the garage, get rid of the junk, move on.
Then she looked at the pile again. Beneath the bookcase were dusty paint cans. Beside the mattress sat a refrigerator that had stopped working years ago. A contractor had left broken tile and drywall after renovating the kitchen. None of it seemed especially complicated—until Maria realized that each item might need a different destination.
