Scams, bidding wars and predatory landlords: One couple’s quest for housing after the fires

As the flames plunged down Eaton Canyon on Jan. 7, Todd Smoyer fled his Altadena home in tears knowing it would be the last time he’d see it.

His neighbor confirmed the next morning that the Midcentury ranch was a heap of ash.

The devastating news kicked off a manic January for Smoyer and his husband, who joined thousands of other desperate refugees scrambling for housing. Smoyer’s quest for a long-term lease saw him claw his way across the region, darting from city to desert to ocean and encountering a cast of characters with questionable motives along the way.

“It’s been overwhelming,” Smoyer said. “We haven’t been able to relax for a month.”

When tens of thousands of people evacuated from Pacific Palisades and Altadena, demand for hotels and short-term rentals skyrocketed. But Smoyer and his husband were a step ahead of the competition.

In the hours before the fires started, they heeded the warnings of dangerous Santa Ana winds and booked a $234 Airbnb in Mid-City for two nights.

Smoyer’s husband checked into the Airbnb with their two dogs that afternoon. Smoyer was at his production job in Hollywood when the Eaton Canyon fire broke out. He rushed home to grab dog food and a few keepsakes.

The couple originally planned to head back to their home on Thursday, but with the house gone, they started looking into other short-term rentals. Prices were already swelling to meet demand, and any dog-friendly stays ballooned to around $600 per night.

The pair managed to extend their stay at the Airbnb they were already in — paying a rate of $252 for the next two nights and $317 for the three nights after that.

They thought they’d cover some of the costs with a $1,000 Airbnb voucher, which they applied for on Jan. 8 and received four days later. But when they tried to use it, customer service told them it couldn’t apply to stays that had already been booked.

By the weekend, reports of price gouging were spreading across L.A. County, and fire victims were waging bidding wars to secure the few furnished rentals still left on the market. The couple decided to try their luck farther afield.

The plan: Escape the chaos of the city, where new fires and illegally priced listings seemed to pop up daily, and catch their breath in Palm Springs. They booked a Vrbo for two weeks at a rate of $330 per night.

“Places in L.A. were $600 a night, and out in the desert, you could get a much bigger, better place for half the price,” Smoyer said. “We found a giant house with a pool and a cabana. So why not?”

Knowing they had a home for the next two weeks, the pair began the arduous process of putting their life back together, working in tandem to call insurance representatives and scour the internet for a long-term housing solution.

“We’re both producers and have the mindset of being able to compartmentalize,” Smoyer said. “We’d break down, but then get it together again. You have to be annoying and aggressive in demanding what you’re owed, especially from insurance companies.”

Luckily, Smoyer has a solid insurance policy and hopes to be able to stretch the payout to cover rent for the next two years. His insurance provider also provided a temporary housing specialist who promised to send over listings of potential homes they could rent. Over the course of the next few weeks the specialist sent a grand total of one: a house in Sun Valley asking $8,000 per month.

“That’s twice the cost of my mortgage — which I’m still paying,” Smoyer said. “If I took that, I’d probably run out of insurance money in a matter of months.”

At the same time, they were fielding offers from friends, family, even from random interactions with people they didn’t know. Smoyer said the offers from strangers were kind, but typically hollow.

A man at the dog park offered his home for free for three weeks. When Smoyer called to take him up on the gesture, the man said he had been rethinking it and could only provide a few nights.

A woman he befriended at an electric car charging station said he could stay in her Palm Springs home while she was at the Sundance Film Festival. When he reached out to her assistant, he never heard back.

A friend offered her Eagle Rock home for a generous $2,000 per month while she stayed at her place in Big Bear, but later added a condition that she’d be able to come back to stay there whenever she wanted.

“If we’re paying for the home, we don’t want a roommate,” he said. “We’ve had so many things offered and then taken away.”

For all the ill-conceived offers, there were plenty of genuine gestures as well. After his two-week Vrbo stay was up, the owner offered to let them live there for another two weeks for $400 — a nightly rate of $28.57.

But work called them back to L.A. While the pair fantasized about leaving California — looking at homes in Portland, Ore., to replicate the woodsy Altadena haven they’d lost, and even considering New York City to switch up their lifestyle entirely — they knew they couldn’t for the sake of their careers.

They spent their afternoons scouring Zillow in a desperate game with thousands of players searching for homes big enough to fit their needs but cheap enough to stretch insurance money. The Westside would’ve been convenient for work, but realistic options started at $5,000 and ranged up to $30,000.

So they expanded their search south and east, looking pretty much anywhere that had single-family homes with yards for the dogs: Highland Park, Mount Washington, Hollywood, Glendale, Long Beach, Inglewood, Baldwin Hills. A 2,500-square-foot house in Whittier for $3,250. An 800-square-foot one-bedroom in Nichols Canyon for $4,800.

But good prices were often misleading.

Todd Smoyer wears a custom Altadena hat on move-in day at a new home with his husband and their two dogs in Long Beach after losing their home in Altadena to the Eaton fire on Thursday.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

“One property manager told me the place was listed at $5,000, but he’s already gotten offers at $7,500, so I’d need to top that to be considered,” Smoyer said. “It felt like the pandemic all over again, where the price you see isn’t even close to the price it ends up at.”

For the few decent deals available, they competed with dozens of other families. Smoyer and his husband have good jobs and good credit, but not the top-end income that would make their application stand out in a stack of 100.

Others tried to prey on their vulnerability. Throughout January, the housing assistance specialist provided by their insurance called them every few days urging them to rent furniture and kitchenware from their company.

“We said no so many times, but they kept asking,” Smoyer said. “I work in production so I know that the prices don’t make sense. You rent an office chair for $25 per week, or you could just buy one for the cost of renting it for a month. If I could be back in my place in a month, then maybe. But I’ll probably be without a permanent home for the next five to eight years.”

Eventually, a friend of a friend offered him a Silver Lake guesthouse. It had two bedrooms but was small with no parking or central air conditioning.

Desperate, he said yes.

At the same time, his husband found a 1,700-square-foot house in Long Beach with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a garage and yard for $3,950 per month on Zillow. Unlike the rest of the listings, which had hundreds of applicants, this one had a scant 17 — and an open house was actively happening.

They called a friend in Long Beach, who sped over and walked them through the home on a video call. Smoyer put in an application immediately, and they heard back three days later: It was theirs if they wanted it.

But there was one catch: The owner would only accept a two-year lease.

“I still haven’t been inside the home yet. Maybe there’s no water pressure, or maybe the electricity always goes out,” he said on Jan. 30. “Plus, I’m not even sure I’ll like Long Beach.”

They took a beat to wrap their heads around locking in a two-year lease for a home they haven’t entered in a city they don’t know. But they also realized if they didn’t move quickly, they might not get a chance this good again.

So they signed.

Smoyer said he feels incredibly lucky. Many fire victims were completely immobilized in the days after the fire and are still nowhere close to finding a permanent home. Others are still showing up at every open house but losing the leases to people with bigger incomes and higher credit scores.

He hopes to rebuild in Altadena but realizes that’s a half-decade down the road, at least. Also, with so many historic homes, trees and trails burned, it won’t be the same place he left.

On Thursday they drove to Long Beach to move into the house — and walk through it for the first time. The place was quirky, a 1929 Spanish bungalow filled with fun surprises that weren’t mentioned in the listing: a plunge tub in the guest bathroom, a built-in foldout bench hidden in the wall, a faucet shaped like a telephone.

“You have to find the silver linings,” Smoyer said while playing fetch with his dogs in his new backyard. “I keep feeling this gut punch remembering this isn’t my home. But hopefully it feels like home someday.”