Unlicensed S3 E1: Tiny Homes
38:41 Share

Hello! I am so excited to announce the third season of Unlicensed, the LA detective show which is the first fiction show Jeffrey and I created together since Welcome to Night Vale. I love Unlicensed so much, and we go so big in the third season, this one really goes for it. What you're about to hear is the first of three episodes from this season that we will put on the Night Vale feed, but I'm

I would recommend starting Unlicensed with the first season to see how the characters and their relationships grow. We pay a lot of that stuff off in this season, so it's a journey worth taking. You can listen to all three seasons right now within the span of a free Audible trial, and I hope you do. Fly north to San Pedro. Ah, ah, ah, don't look at the gun. Look at where you're going. Keep us low and fast, Captain. No one's getting hurt unless they need to be hurt. One of you shut those kids up.

If I see your finger touch that transponder, I have no problem crashing everyone on this chopper into the Pacific. And you don't want that, do you, Captain? Unlicensed. Episode 1. Tiny Homes. This is a story about an ending. But to understand that ending, we have to go to the beginning. The Earth was created in a single day. It was a long day. Trillions of hours long.

There was a lot to do that first day. There was the breaking apart, the heating, the cooling, the spinning, the settling into an orbit a comfortable distance from the Sun. An atmosphere had to be constructed, and billions of hours were dedicated to waiting for all of the chemicals that made up the air to settle into oceans or remain adrift as nitrogen.

and oxygen. All the while, the molten core of the Earth, still warm from the start of the day, sloshed around inside the rocky orb, and mountains moved in great creaks and waves until a familiar land map settled into what we know today. You would think that if the Earth could be created in a single day,

Repairing a city, and not even one of the 20 largest cities in the world at that, wouldn't take very long at all, let alone five months. It's been five months since the Riverside earthquake, and the tin is still down to one lane between Bloomington and Ontario. There are dozens of neighborhoods from East LA all the way down to San Bernardino County without drinkable water.

And more than 10,000 people are unhoused who were not unhoused six months ago, straining the capacity of shelters and tiny home villages all over the county. One might think leadership is to blame. One might be right. But when has being right ever helped in matters of the state?

I'm a little annoyed at the piece of tamale that didn't make it into my mouth and instead splatted down onto my desk. The desk? I just cleaned. Yeah, with a rag and some Lysol and everything. I wipe up the little bit of food with a paper napkin and toss it into the trash can next to my feet. It's fine.

I'm really just cosplaying as a clean person. Everything in my office is tidy and organized, except the storage closet. If someone were to step into my office, they would think, "This Lou Rosen sure is squared away. Wow! I'm glad to be doing business with her. An organized mind is next to godliness." Or something. I forget the cliché.

The point is, the ceiling and walls of the storage closet collapsed in the earthquake. There were mostly boxes of files I hadn't thought about in years in there. I wasn't really using them. And so the closet now is an oversized trash can for non-perishables. I'll clean it out, but it's not urgent. I don't need anything in there. I'm thinking about closets full of shit a lot because I can't stop following the presidential primaries.

The governor is inexplicably leading the polls, but the news currently is detailing a statement he made referring to some of these girls in Congress. Of course, it's not having a negative effect on the governor's campaign because we've crafted two sides to every story. Point, it's bad because he's sexist. Counterpoint, whatever.

I don't know why I'm watching this. Nothing else on, I guess. I wonder what Molly's up to. I'm watching Home Helper Harry's YouTube tutorial on how to replace a door.

I first started watching him so I could learn how to unclog my fridge's water line. Then I discovered he teaches all kinds of things on his channel. Stuff like indoor herb gardening, sourdough baking, lockpicking. He even added an online CPR class. So I've been learning a lot. But now I'm back on his home repair videos.

When I re-upped my lease on this Northridge apartment last month, the landlord kept the rent the same. I think he was feeling bad about not fixing much since the earthquake. I live in a building known as a dingbat, a mid-century, boxy two-story on stilts. You park your car on the ground floor. There's a row of these dingbat apartments on my street, which is cute, but improbable.

During the Northridge earthquake of 1994, nearly all of the dingbats collapsed, and building new ones is illegal. At least with the elevated stilt look. Those stilts would probably be great for flood zones, but they make for a pretty wobbly earthquake experience. I didn't know that until I moved in, but these particular dingbats survived the epicenter of a 6.7 earthquake 30 years ago. So maybe they're just built different.

No handyman ever came, so I went to the hardware store. My bathroom door no longer closes right. Home helper Harry's instructional video makes it look so easy. Unscrew the hinges, align the door with the jam, screw back in the hinges. I don't take into account that Harry has an assistant who can hold the door while Harry works the electric screwdriver. I have a non-electric screwdriver and no assistant.

A few months ago, I was gleefully demoing an old theater in Redlands with Jamie, thinking I found love, but was actually just destroying history. Now it's the week before Thanksgiving, a time that can't help but make me think of my estranged family, and I can't even fix a bathroom door because it's too unwieldy to do alone. So I leave it leaning against the frame for now. Does a lack of bathroom privacy really matter when you live alone?

I concentrate on the walls instead. I click play on home helper Harry's drywall repair video. He has a bucket and a spatula. I do not. Back to Lowe's, I guess. My lawyer Tammy Kane calls. She still works in the back room of her father's pawn shop in Glendora, though she's telling me she's finally moving into her own office. She doesn't know where or when or how she'll afford the rent, but that's the plan.

She's been getting more clients since Molly's glowing five-star review of her work on my legal battles with the governor and his fixer, Chuck Nixon. I wouldn't call it a victory. I still had to plead guilty to the charges. And because of my criminal record, the state will never license me as a private investigator. But on the bright side, I don't have to go to prison for... Honestly, I never even asked how many years the sentence could have been.

It wasn't the best outcome. The best outcome would be the governor getting impeached and his political career ruined. But it was the best possible outcome. And for that, I respect the hell out of Tammy Kang and her iced mochas with four pumps, three shots, and sprinkles. Tammy's not calling to tell me about her hopes to get her own office, though. She's representing a tiny home village in Eagle Rock.

There's a pending lawsuit from a neighborhood watchdog group. Pacific Gardens, a public housing complex and city terrace, collapsed following the earthquake, displacing dozens, leading to an overcrowding at the tiny home village. A group of Eagle Rock-concerned neighbors blame a recent spike in crime on the tiny home village not managing their residents.

"Can you sue a housing development for their tenants' behavior?" I ask Tammy. "You can sue anybody, Lou," Tammy says. She's trying not to sound like she has a mouth full of blueberry muffin. Then she mumbles something that sounds like "nmbi." "Gumbi?" I ask. "Nimby," she articulates after a swallow. "Oh, nimby. Not in my backyard."

NIMBYs are residential pearl-clutchers who theoretically are against crime and unsightly lawns, but who become so obsessed with justice that they see anyone who doesn't look like them, usually older, white, and well-off, as a physical and existential threat.

A NIMBY lawsuit against homes for the unhoused makes too much sense. Tammy wants Molly and me to demonstrate that there is not a rise in crime in Eagle Rock. Anything to help you get that new office, I say. I've got spackle crust all over my new jeans. Home helper Harry didn't say anything about remembering to change into work clothes first. He pretty much only says, "And just like that, you done good."

I've also managed to get spackle on the carpet and the tile. Pretty much everywhere but the cracks in the wall. There's a knock at the door. I answer it and am immediately startled to see myself staring back. Not the Molly Hatch with dirty jeans, matted hair, and sweaty neck, but a version of me with a tight ponytail, flawless makeup, and boutique fashion.

I think for a second I've stepped into some kind of sliding doors scenario. Is this the version of me that stayed in Nevada? In the church? In her marriage? The one that never strayed from sobriety or family expectations? Then she speaks. "Hey, I'm Sophia," she says. "Sophia Landry. I'm in apartment 1B, right over there." She points to a lower level unit one dingbat building over.

Molly, Hatch, I say. I'm in apartment 2A, and here I point to my own door just inches from us. She laughs. It's unconvincing, but friendly. I can't stop looking at how we're the same build, same hair color and texture. I'm staring too long, so I finally ask, what's up, Sophia?

She says she saw me with all these nice tools and wanted to know if I could help her mount her new TV. It's Thanksgiving next week, and she wants to be able to watch the parade and the dog show with her friends on something other than her laptop. I tell Sophia I don't have that much skill, but I do have home helper Harry. The only thing I ask in return is that she hold the bathroom door while I screw in the hinges. Deal.

After that, we spend a couple hours measuring, taping, and rewinding the video. We laugh at Harry's main accent and his taste in workshop wall art. Every picture is some variation of a muscle car with flames on the hood.

As much as Sophia and I look alike, we are unalike in almost every other way. She's a high fashion girly. She does marketing for a tech startup that focuses on crowdfunding for tech startups. She also teaches spin classes online for a little fitness and a little cash. She used to be a dancer. She grew up in Verona, New Jersey with a dream of Broadway lights, and she eventually became a Rockette.

And then a torn MCL abruptly precluded that career path. So she moved to LA two years ago. Same. With the hopes of starting over. Same. With the dream of finding love for herself rather than everyone else. Oh god, same! She's also super close with her family and loves nightclubs. Well, not same, but still.

We learn as much as we can from home helper Harry. Yeah, that's quality work. And decide it's time to take the leap of faith with our newfound knowledge. We finally get to drilling. I bought an electric drill on my latest trip to the hardware store, DeWalt. Exactly the same one Jamie had.

We slide the wall anchors into the gaping holes we just made, screw in the brackets, and bam! TV mounted. We high-five each other, and then an air high-five to home helper Harry on my laptop. Sophia goes to get some seltzers from the fridge when Lou texts me. Something about a bullshit neighborhood association suing the unhoused? And do I want to go to Eagle Rock this afternoon? I'm starting to reply yes when Sophia re-enters and asks if I like Bad Bunny.

I tell her, "Maybe. I don't know anything about him. Her? Them? Except the name." So it would be hard for me to make a moral judgment. She tells me her friend got sick and they were supposed to go see Bad Bunny at the Forum in Inglewood tonight. She doesn't ask if I want to go. She tells me I have to go. She's convincing. I text Lou back. "Can we do it tomorrow morning?" I write. I see Sophia is already planning her outfit.

She wants to do this up right. I write Lou another text, like late morning and hit send. Earth's seven continents began as one land mass. This place was called Pangea. Humans were not around yet to enjoy this single block of Earth. If they were, would they have settled into a more uniform culture? Would we today be more unified in our ways, less hateful,

and suspicious? Probably not. We'll never know for certain because Pangea split. Over millions of years, the tectonic plates rumbled and shifted. Oceans filled the chasms left behind, and the continents, like the people who would inhabit them much later, drifted apart. Humans evolved and claimed the fertile valleys, plentiful gulfs, and strategic mountain passes.

They stuck their flags into the earth and drew invisible lines denoting subcontinents, countries, counties, towns, villages, families. And over the course of 10,000 or so years, cities and hospitals and communities were built. Tools, vehicles, medicines, and machines became ways to help one another and hurt one another.

Sometimes there are great wars. Sometimes there are minor scrapes and clashes. But the tectonic plates of our original continent grind. I didn't even drink last night, but I feel hungover. The concert was good, though I had more fun watching Sophia and every other Bad Bunny fan scream-sing along with him. I'm riding with Lou to Eagle Rock. I'm wearing sunglasses, even though it's overcast.

Lou pulls up to a drab office complex with a sign next to the parking lot that features a list of businesses, all of which have inscrutable names like Armania LLC or DGRT Express Inc. or the Rialto Company.

We're here to visit Salvador Estrella, the executive director of the Eagle Rock Tiny Home Village. While the city of Los Angeles funds the tiny homes, they're operated by a nonprofit organization called Safe Hands. We warm him up by letting him tell us about all the good work he's done, all the anecdotes of people finally succeeding in life after just a little helping hand from the tiny homes.

Then we ask how he's handling the overcrowding at the Eagle Rock tiny home village. Salvador groans, and his idealistic smile sours into a grimace.

The city has never adequately funded our efforts, he says. They're hamstrung by the state, who tells us that the tiny home villages are very unpopular with voters. But that's just not true, he says. They're only unpopular with major donors. And now, when we need that funding the most, they're being even more tight-fisted about it.

I think I like Salvador. He's an altruist, but also a bit of a cynic. That's a healthy combo. I tell him Tammy sent us to investigate the neighborhood claims that former tiny home residents have been committing crimes in Eagle Rock.

"What crimes?" he asks. He emphasizes the word "crimes," not the word "what." "What crimes" sounds defensive. "What crimes" puts it back on me to give more detail before he truly responds. Yeah, okay. I definitely like this guy.

We tell them we looked up crime rates in Eagle Rock before and after the influx of tiny home residents, and there are spikes in the numbers, though small. Probably just a common fluctuation in crime stats, but any anecdotal information could help.

There are only two crimes Salvador knows about. The first crime is the state withholding funding in this most dire time of need. The second crime is the fear-mongering. He tells us about the man who's filing the lawsuit on behalf of the Neighborhood Association, Ryan Larson. Salvador says Colorado Boulevard, which runs east-west across Eagle Rock, is the dividing line.

Not between the rich and the poor, but between the elite and the middle class. Ryan lives on the elite side, the north side of Colorado. Ryan has been pushing his quote, "more accurate" crime stats for weeks now on Nextdoor and Facebook, fomenting a small but fervent backlash against the new residents of the tiny home village.

Ryan's equation is destitution times outsiders equals danger. We thank Salvador for his time. He asks us to give his best to Tammy, who apparently is taking this on pro bono. Wow. Salvador says we're welcome to come back if we have more questions. He smiles once again, but weaker. He grumbles. It's hard enough dealing with the government in a crisis.

But adding bigots makes it so much worse. Over on Hill Drive, a steep climb north from Colorado Boulevard, we knock on the door of a large Spanish-style mansion built into the slope with a lower-level garage, lush green lawn, and stone-lined manicured hedges. There's an outdated "Vote Rick Caruso" sign leaning on the wall near the driveway. The front door opens.

Inside, I immediately noticed that the classic southwestern architecture of the exterior hides an interior that has been ruthlessly remodeled to remove all hints of color and character. When Salvador told me Ryan was a 50-something man who spends all of his spare time complaining about non-white strangers online, I imagined what Ryan Larson might look like.

And that is exactly the man standing in front of us now. Oh, I know this guy. Not Ryan specifically, but I know this guy. Christian, friendly, warm, but deep down, just a put-upon curmudgeon. He'll shake your hand in person, but behind your back, he'll tell people you're a drunk, a no-good, a trollop.

He won't ever say out loud a forbidden epithet, but he's always this close. Concern trolling and an "I'm just saying" approach to rhetoric are hallmarks of the blankophobic man. Ryan shakes my hand and greets me with a plastic smile. I don't trust him in the slightest. Before my face can show my cynicism, I put on my churchiest charm.

I learned to do this as a child, and it works universally on all surface Christians. I'm just an "aw shucks girl trying to do what's right in the world, mister" and "oh geez, I'm a little lost and need a man to help me sort through some questions I had. Could you help us, Mr. Larson?" "Sir?" I can feel Lou's pride in me radiating like warmth from a fireplace.

Ryan says, "Your problem, young lady, is you talked to that Salvadoran fellow before you talked to me." I did not ask Salvador, but it would be quite a leap to assume his name is also the country he's from. Ryan says several homes have been not just broken into, but ransacked at alarming rates ever since those people moved in.

I tell him we've seen the public crime data, but we heard he has better statistics. Quote, "Actual numbers." "Sure," he says excitedly and returns with a binder-clipped stack of spreadsheets and graphs, maybe two inches thick. Inside is a contact list of everyone who reported a complaint about crime to Ryan. Bingo! Church Girl is my superhero alter ego.

"This tracks crime trends going back 10 years," he says. "You can see the spike in crime just in the last three months. It's clear as day." And he's right. He's stretched the graphs and cropped the ranges so that small fluctuations look towering. "Oh, and you can keep that," he says. "I got stacks of them." "Thanks," I say. "Very helpful." We turn to leave.

"Wait, are you journalists?" he asks. "Absolutely not. We're investigators," I say, finally letting down my phony smile. I watch as he slowly lets down his, too. "Because we build things, large things, like houses, hospitals, towers, highways, aqueducts, bridges, and whole cities, earthquakes can be pretty annoying."

All that work, all that effort and resources ruined in moments. And for what? So that a mountain can move 10 centimeters to the west? So that some expanding magma can loosen itself from the crust? To us humans, an earthquake doesn't appear to change the map of the Earth at all, but it destroys whole communities of people. Earthquakes are scary and dangerous to be sure,

But at their heart, they're annoying. Because we can't see the millions of years it takes for all of these little shifts to show true progress. From Pangea to the seven continents. They're a frustrating reminder that the universe is never ending. And we humans are so tiny, both physically and temporally. Sadly, Ryan's contact list is useless.

We went to four different houses, all of which were inhabited by NIMBY types, just like Ryan. People who nestle into the comfort of fear.

They are convinced there's a crime wave caused by the homeless and ignored by the government and media. But their stories were just photocopies of photocopies. Not a single one of them has been the victim of a crime. But they had all heard from someone who knew someone who was. Of course, they were unable to provide names.

A random draw of houses would have been a better use of our time, so that's what I decide to do. I drive to an arbitrary street. Norwalk Avenue. Sounds nice. And we ask around about break-ins. One couple, Jeremy and Navid, seem surprised by the mention of break-ins. They ask if we're cops. I say, "No. You can tell because we're actually here looking into it." They both giggle.

When I mention Ryan and the NIMBY folks on next door, Jeremy rolls his eyes and says, "You can't take anything they say seriously." But then Navid says, "Wait, hun, you remember that lady from Trader Joe's? She said her bedroom window was smashed. She was crying, and we bought her a cold brew to calm her down. Do you know where she lives?" Molly asks. They say no, but there's one possible break-in.

Jeremy and Navid refer us to Gwen across the street, who hasn't seen any unusual folks in the area. Sure, some unhoused people, but it's L.A. That's normal. Gwen then refers us to Nick and Holly on Westdale Avenue, who have three very snippy corgis and who definitely heard about a break-in from their friend Fatima.

Fatima has a gorgeous cactus garden lining the front porch of her sunset-colored apartment. She refers to a woman she met at Trader Joe's who had her bedroom window smashed. So we've gone full circle. But at this point, Fatima's next-door neighbor steps out. She overheard our conversation. "'Why are you going around asking about break-ins?' She said, squinting at us suspiciously.

She's a small woman in her 50s with piercing green eyes. We explain and she nods slowly as if deciding whether she can trust us. I got broken into actually, she says finally. She looks nervous when she admits this. Like maybe we're the people who broke in and are now casing the joint for new security measures. We're investigators, I tell her. We help people.

That line usually works for Lou, but Caroline still looks trepidatious. I explain the lawsuit against the tiny home village and that we just want to verify that reports of break-ins in Eagle Rock are a statistical blip and not related to displaced citizens. Caroline eyes me, then Lou, who hands her a card and gives her a reassuring smile.

Caroline looks dubiously at Lou's card, but I can see her face relaxing. I repeat, this time with feeling. We help people. Okay, she says, and a smile flashes across her face like a clever idea. She invites us into her apartment.

which has a sparse interior decor that makes her place look like an Airbnb and offers us some tea. A brand called Widow's Folly, which sounds to me like an arsenic and old lace kind of thing. She starts out with small talk. She's from Long Beach, apparently, just moved here recently, but finally gets around to the reason we're here. When the break-in happened, she was out. Someone rifled through her stuff.

But nothing was taken. What stuff did they go through?

Caroline says they really did a number on her media cabinet. They knocked over a lot of old CDs and DVDs that she can't even use these days without a player. But that's really it. Weird, she says, because there were a couple of people who commented about similar break-ins on Nextdoor a while back, only they deleted their posts after the NIMBY crowd started politicizing their misfortune. Caroline shows us the screen grabs of those posts.

They also had their media cabinets raided. Caroline never reached out to them about her own break-in because she didn't want to get dragged into a public argument about the unhoused. But if we wanted to follow up, maybe there's a connection? No earthquake is quite as notorious as the big one.

There have been some big earthquakes in Los Angeles history. Long Beach, 1933. San Fernando, 1971. Northridge, 1994. But the big one is always coming. It's not just about what the earthquake does when it arrives. It's about what it takes with it when it leaves. The big one promises to take away water, communication, life,

roads, and maybe even wide swaths of land itself. And all of this hits hardest for those who cannot afford to get help, or worse, cannot be heard calling for help. We drive to a two-story craftsman-style home at the end of a cul-de-sac. We meet Rio, who's retired, mostly, though they still work part-time at Dodger Stadium Concessions. They don't need the money. They just like the Dodgers, especially now that Otani's here.

Rio was one of the screen grabs Caroline showed us. Rio confirms the break-in. Whoever did it pried open the back door with a bar and then dug through all of Rio's closets and drawers. They also really fucked up Rio's media cabinet. "Do you work in audio or video production?" Lou asks. "I used to have a really nice job at a stereo manufacturer," Rio says. "Precision Audio works in Long Beach, but that was like 20 years ago.

And I wrote press releases. I didn't make the stereos. Rio adds that they don't even have a stereo, let alone one from their old company. Plus, even if they still had a Precision Audio Stereo, it would be very out of date. They made a really nice product, Rio says. But we got bought out by this real dickbag named Neil Bacardi. Everything went downhill, and that's when I got out.

Neil Bacardi is probably the most dickbag name I've ever heard. We wish Rio a better season for the Dodgers next year and thank them. We get a late coffee and a donut at Donut Friend on York before leaving Eagle Rock.

I call Tammy and tell her the NIMBYs have no case. Their numbers show a 50% rise in crime between May, before the housing development collapse led to the all-new tiny home residents, and now. But we're talking a 50% rise from 8 to 12. But go back to last year, or even five years ago. Crime is overall down in Eagle Rock. In fact, it's showing a steady decade-long decline, even with the tiny spike from this summer.

Tammy says, "Thank you for that. I have one more question. What are you eating?" "Mmm, something called a Yola Mango. I fucking love these donuts. Mmm. Can you move your office to Eagle Rock, Tammy?" I ask while taking my last bite.

We double back with Caroline, letting her know what we learned from Rio. We repeat the name Precision Audio Works to her. It's a long shot, but we have two identical break-ins involving Long Beach transplants within a few days of each other. Caroline surprises us by saying she did, in fact, work at Precision Audio in Long Beach. She was the front desk receptionist. Maybe it's not a long shot. Maybe there's a connection.

From a quick Google, it seems the company's not even in business anymore. What could a criminal possibly want with former low-level employees of a stereo maker that hasn't existed since the 90s? As I ask this, I see the fear return to Caroline's face. Her eyes go dark and her head lowers, like a toy that lost battery power. There's something else to this case, a factor she's not ready to tell us about yet.

She says, "It's very possible there's a connection between these cases. If we could find other former employees of Precision Audio, we could learn more about what's going on. Or even better, we could give them the heads up that someone might be targeting them," Caroline says. "Not that I expect you to work for free," she reassures us. Which is good, because sometimes we will offer that and we could really use the money right now.

"I just would feel safer knowing someone was looking into this. I read about you, Miss Rosen," Caroline says, hopefully, "after you left here earlier. I read about Amy Ross and your fight with the governor. You really do help people, don't you?" she asks. "That's a question that has gotten me into trouble before." "Sure. What do we have to lose?" This is a story about an ending, and that ending begins here. Break-ins with nothing stolen.

Targeting employees of a company that went out of business 30 years ago. Another case. One of hundreds in Lou's life. But not all cases are the same. Because this one holds a secret. A poison that California has been swallowing for decades. The dark heart of the dark heart. The end of an unlicensed detective agency. You can repair a road. You can fix a sewer line.

You can restore power and rebuild homes, but you can't put the dust back from where it came. You can't move the mountain to the place it was before. After an earthquake, everything is different, even if it looks the same. That which was closed has now been opened, loosening things you never would have noticed otherwise.