Quake Contractors

There was nothing coincidental about the timing of the telephone sales pitch he received from a Mercedes-Benz dealer, according to Steve Notaro, co-owner of Decoma Engineering.

After all, Notaro’s engineering and construction firm in Los Angeles was known for seismic work such as structural reinforcement. And the car salesman was calling just two days after the Oct. 1 earthquake.

Said Notaro: “He (the dealer) thought I was going to be rich because of the earthquake.”

The notion that seismic contractors derived a financial windfall from the damage left by the October temblor is common--and wrong, according to Notaro and other contractors.

Notaro said income and earnings at Decoma were actually lower than usual during the two months after the earthquake. City inspection of many of Decoma’s regularly scheduled reinforcement projects was postponed because building inspectors were busy surveying for structural damage, Notaro said. Projects aren’t officially completed--and Decoma is not paid--until the city inspects and approves the work, Notaro said.

There were other unexpected effects. George Perez, head of Coliman Land Clearing, a Los Angeles firm that handles demolition and clearance of the damaged portion of property, said his workers usually collect unwanted used bricks and sell them to companies or contractors. Some of Coliman’s customers buy as many as 200,000 to 500,000 bricks at 23 to 26 cents each, Perez said. On average, bricks sell for about 30 cents each, he said. However, the earthquake created a brick glut that lowered the price to about 18 cents, Perez said.

Defenders of the Los Angeles ordinance that requires structural strengthening of many older buildings have found solid ground in the wake of the Oct. 1 earthquake, according to officials at the city’s building and safety department.

Allen Asakura, chief of the earthquake division at the Los Angeles Building and Safety Department, said it had been difficult to gauge the value of strengthening work until after the Oct. 1 quake. Since then, a survey has been made, he said. “The strengthened buildings stood up much better than the unstrengthened buildings,” said Asakura, “particularly the residential buildings.”

Of the 430 unstrengthened residential buildings inspected, 200 were damaged and 724 units had to be vacated, Asakura said. Of the 73 reinforced residential buildings inspected, only 16 were damaged and only nine units were vacated. The breakdown: 5.1% of the units in unreinforced buildings had to be vacated because of dangerous conditions, compared to 0.41% of the units in strengthened structures.

More than six months after the big Oct. 1 earthquake, state officials and business watchdogs are waiting for aftershocks from angry consumers unhappy with repair work.

A number of phony operators took money but made no repairs after the 1971 Sylmar earthquake. The Contractors State License Board, which regulates the contracting industry, has been trying to head off fraudulent activity. In the wake of Oct. 1 quake, the license board provided staff help for five disaster centers established to help property owners spot phony or unethical contractors.

“I expect a lot of complaints, but not nearly as many as we would have received if not for the effort put into (consumer) education,” said Robert Porter, assistant regional deputy of the license board’s Southern regional office, one of two board regional offices.

Homeowners can avoid many of these losses by declining offers from unlicensed contractors who promise a cheap, quick fix, said Joyce Fabian, a complaints settlement coordinator at the Inland Cities Better Business Bureau, which has handled complaints from Los Angeles- area property owners. Consumers can sometimes screen out fly-by- night operators by asking contractors to show their licenses, Fabian said. Property owners should not make down payments before examining a company’s credentials, she said.

However, some unscrupulous contractors use fake documents, Fabian said. To ensure that a contractor is legitimate, consumers should write down license numbers, get business cards and verify the credentials with the Contractors State License Board, she said.