Water, Fire and Mold Damage Restoration in Reseda

The 1994 earthquake carries Northridge's name, but its epicenter sat in Reseda, between Arminta Street and Ingomar Street just west of Reseda Boulevard. It hit just after 4:30 in the morning on January 17. Across the Valley, houses shifted on their foundations, water heaters fell over, and severed water and gas lines left some streets with fires and floods at the same time. Five days later, between 40,000 and 60,000 customers in the region still had no public water service.

Thirty years on, the water risk in Reseda is quieter and more constant. The town started in 1912 as Marian, took the name Reseda in 1921, and stayed mostly farmland until the late 1940s, when single-family tracts replaced the fields. By 1950 it had more than 16,000 residents. In ZIP code 91335 the median home was built in 1963, which means a lot of supply lines, drain lines and water heater connections here have been in service for sixty years or more.

Pipes that age fail in predictable places. A copper line under a slab wears through and wets the floor from below, so the first sign is a warm spot on tile, a carpet that feels damp along one wall, or a water bill that jumped without explanation. Cast iron drains crack and seep under the house. We find the wet area with moisture meters and thermal imaging, map how far it spread, and photograph it before anything is opened, so the record shows what the leak reached and when.

Reseda is also half renters. About half of the households in 91335 rent, and more than a quarter of the housing units are in buildings of twenty or more. In a building like that the unit that calls is rarely the unit where the water started. We trace it to its source, check the units above, below and beside it, and keep a separate set of photos and readings for each unit number.

The street can bring the water too. On August 28, 2015, a six-inch pipe burst in the 8000 block of Canby Avenue before dawn, up to 50 households lost water, and the flooding spread across several blocks. Water that runs down a street and into a garage or a ground-floor unit is contaminated by the time it gets there. It is extracted, the surfaces are cleaned and disinfected, and only then does drying start.

The Los Angeles River runs through Reseda in its concrete channel, crossing under Reseda Boulevard. It carries storm water east toward Lake Balboa and the Sepulveda Basin, and in a heavy storm the problem for most homes is closer to the house: gutters that overflow, yard drains that silt up, and water that ponds against a slab until it finds the gap under a door.

If water is on the floor right now, shut it off at the fixture or at the main, keep the power off in rooms where it reached outlets, lift rugs and boxes off the floor, and photograph each wet room before anything moves. If you rent, tell the manager in writing so there is a dated record. Then call, day or night.

Mold follows water that sat. A slow drip behind a kitchen cabinet or under a bathroom floor in an older house can grow for weeks before anyone smells it. We set up containment with HEPA filtration, remove what has to go, and tell you plainly what we found and where. Fire calls get the same care: smoke from a kitchen fire travels through a small house fast, and we clean the soot and treat the odor room by room.

On insurance, we photograph the damage, log moisture readings every day, write an estimate for our own scope of work, and can bill your carrier directly for our services. Whether a loss is covered is a question for your carrier, your agent or a public adjuster you hire. We respond anywhere in Los Angeles, Orange County and Riverside around the clock, our technicians hold IICRC certifications, and the first inspection is free.