Red Tags and Broken Hearts

In 1963, Rose and Antonio Alvarado moved with their four children to a three-bedroom, two-bathroom home on the slopes of Glassell Park. Looming behind the neighborhood was a hill that would become the children’s’ urban playground, a place to race sleds made of cellophane and cardboard, and to fly kites.

Then came weeks of unrelenting rains in January and February that hour by hour weakened the hill. A landslide pushed the Alvarados’ backyard concrete patio into their home like a horizontal guillotine.

The family’s wood-and-stucco hillside home with a sloping garden of ivy and flowers was one of 10 in the neighborhood red-tagged by the city as uninhabitable. It leans forward, split by giant cracks and edging toward the street.

The Alvarados, both 80, are living in a singles apartment in Glendale. They had retired 18 years ago on Social Security checks and small pensions. They planned to live out their lives overlooking the city before handing the house mortgage-free to their children.

Now they contemplate a long road that they are certain will never quite take them all the way back.

“We can’t go back to work at our age. Our Social Security is not enough to make payments on a loan,” Rose said. “I can’t even think what we’re going to do.”

The Alvarados are among the hundreds of families across Southern California whose lives were thrown into turmoil by what is now the second-wettest rainy season on record. The weather has been relatively dry for three months, but the recovery for some has been excruciatingly slow. And many families remain uncertain how much of a financial burden they will have.

In the city of Los Angeles, nearly 70 of the 100 homes originally red-tagged because of major damage or landslide danger remain off limits. It is the largest number of red-tagged homes in Los Angeles since the 1994 Northridge quake, which left more than 1,300 homes uninhabitable. More than 20,000 people have requested federal assistance for damage including washed-out lawns, flooded rooms and unstable retaining walls. Because mudslides are not covered by most types of insurance, people whose homes were seriously damaged by slides face an expensive recovery.

Those whose homes were red-tagged shared common experiences: moving into motels or apartments, or taking up offers of lodging from friends, family and neighbors, and seeking geologists and soil engineers to inspect properties and slopes in hopes of convincing the city it is safe to return home.

“God knows I’ve gotten a crash course in geology I never wanted,” said Bill See, who with his wife and 10-year-old daughter was barred from returning to their home along Laurel Canyon Road near Mt. Olympus until Thursday. Last week, the family finally got clearance from the city to return.

But the Alvarados and other families on Mimosa Drive face a longer road to recovery.

Unlike some of the hillside neighborhoods affected by landslides, Glassell Park is largely working-class. The residents include teachers, nurses and retirees. The Alvarados worked 30 years together at Franciscan Pottery, a dinnerware company. They make a combined $1,643 a month in Social Security and pensions.

Rose said she misses life on Mimosa Drive. She misses the lazy afternoons spent listening to Jim Nabors cassettes on the player a daughter gave her 40 years ago, the cassettes she wants played when she dies. She misses ironing in the master bedroom, with the curtains open so she could gaze at the hill and the flowering tree her late mother gave her as a sapling.

“I miss my couch. It’s blue and green with a floral pattern,” Rose said. “My husband says ‘Forget it, it’s too much to take with us.’ ”

But going back seems increasingly unlikely.

The Alvarados must make a decision soon about knocking down their house. In January, the home was appraised at $475,000 to $550,000. They believe they would now be lucky to get $100,000 for the empty lot -- and that does not include the expense of demolition.

The city has given them a May 27 deadline to come up with plans to either repair the house or demolish it. The latter would cost about $50,000 -- money they don’t have. Some experts have told them that the house can’t be saved and that it would have to be knocked down and rebuilt.

This option is problematic because such a project would require a hefty loan -- one that would be difficult for 80-year-olds on a fixed income.

For weeks after the mudslide, the Alvarados stayed at a Comfort Inn. But the room did not have a kitchen, which meant Rose could not cook soft meals like the pasta dishes her husbands needs because he has a narrow esophagus.

The couple also require specially fitted bathtubs because a stroke left Antonio unable to bathe on his own. In March, the couple moved to $900-a-month singles apartment in Glendale.

Except when they buy groceries or have to go to the doctor, the couple rarely venture out of their room. Rose has a rare facial condition that causes intense pain. Sometimes she cannot sleep because of loud noises and music from a second-floor apartment.

They were both born in California -- she in Los Angeles, he in Turlock -- and saw the tidy bungalow in the hills as their dream house. The bought it for $25,000 in 1963 -- making a down payment of $550. The house at 3654 Mimosa Drive was built the year before, and the first owners divorced before moving in. It was a new home.

They raised four children in the house and paid it off about 15 years ago. The couple liked to sit in the backyard below the hillside and catch the rays of the sun.

The Alvarados knew their house was on a slide area. Keith Farrell, a geologist later brought in by a neighbor to help residents with red-tagged homes, said city records showed slides above Mimosa Drive in 1969, 1971, 1974 and 1978.

The Alvarados spent thousands of dollars shoring up the hillside behind their property, creating drainage and strengthening walls after the 1978 slide, which did a little damage. They had no serious problems since.

But then the rains kept coming strong, first in late December to early January. By the February storms, the home seemed to be moving slightly, their son David Alvarado said. The house creaked and groaned. Doors and windows suddenly became hard to open. David went into the basement and the garage and installed wooden beams.

On Feb. 21, he told his parents to be prepared to leave the next day. That night, Rose Alvarado heard a loud sound, like something collapsing. The next morning, she turned on the faucet to wash dishes in the sink. Water spilled to the floor from broken pipes.

It was next-door neighbor Laura Crescenzo’s father, Jess Esparza, 71, a retired engineer, who alerted the Alvarados that their home was in danger of collapsing.

He knocked on the front door, but the Alvarados could not open it. Through the window, Esparza told them to get out of the house.

“I took a little valise for cosmetics and filled it with our medicine,” Rose said. “We left with the clothes we had on.”

From the street, it became apparent why Esparza had been so adamant.

“Our house was moving,” Rose said.

That day, the city’s Department of Building and Safety red-tagged their home and nine others. The couple had to leave virtually all of their belongings.

The Alvarados’ and Crescenzos’ homes suffered the most damage.

Farrell said concrete patios in the backyards of the homes were pushed by tons of earth, acting like wedges that smashed into the homes. The Alvarados’ home was lifted off its foundation.

The home of another neighbor, Angel Canlobo, 35, suffered less damage because his patio was made of bricks that broke apart instead of being driven into the house.

Today, only three of the red-tagged homes remain off limits.

Neighbors whose homes were spared tried to help. Mary Anna Pomonis, a Glendale teacher, brought a geologist to her house to discuss the situation with the affected homeowners. She also tried to guide the Alavarados through the maze of city requirements and disaster documents.

Canlobo’s home is in the best shape. He hopes to fix the back patio, make some other relatively minor repairs over the next few months and perhaps rent it out.

The Crescenzos hope to get a federal loan to make repairs. Experts don’t believe their house is totaled, but it would require a new retaining wall, foundation repairs and tearing out and repairing two bedrooms and two bathrooms. They expect the cost to be $200,000 to $300,000.

The Alvarados find themselves in a more difficult position.

Because the house would have to be completely rebuilt, they would need a significantly larger loan than their neighbors. With help from their son, the couple have applied for a federal loan. It’s unclear whether their joint income would be enough to qualify for a loan.

David has offered to co-sign for the loan, but his parents are wary.

“We were going to leave the house as a living trust for our children. We didn’t want to burden them,” Antonio said. “We even paid for our own plots at Forest Lawn.”

For now, the couple are also worried about the looming city deadline. City building inspectors could determine that the house must be knocked down. If this occurs and the family doesn’t demolish the home on their own, the city would do it. But the city would typically charge the owners the demolition cost plus a 40% surcharge, said Robert Steinbach, assistant bureau chief for the Building and Safety Department.

Last month, David wedged six wood beams between the front of the house and the street. They are mainly there for show.

“It’s not going to save the house,” he said. “We just want to show the city we’re doing something so they don’t knock the house down and charge us more for it.”