Eighteen months after the Palisades and Eaton fires, some families are still trying to rebuild their lives while fighting with insurers over whether their smoke-damaged homes are safe to live in.
Chauncy and Libby Godwin say they remain displaced from their Altadena home after evacuating during the Eaton Fire in January 2025. When they go inside, they wear masks. Their living room remains much as it was when they fled, with their Christmas tree still standing.
“It’s hard to believe that it’s real,” Libby Godwin said.
The couple says their home is unsafe because of smoke damage and alleges that their insurer, Farmers Insurance, has pressured them to move back in.
“They’re kind of cartoonish in their villainy,” Chauncy Godwin said of insurance companies. “It really feels to me that they’re sitting behind their desks, twirling their mustaches.”
After months of back and forth, the Godwins say Farmers has agreed to pay for at least part of the belongings inside their home, totaling roughly $150,000 so far. But they say the larger dispute is over the home itself.
Testing commissioned by the family found “confirmation of persistent carcinogenic and toxigenic residues” inside the house and recommended “full interior demolition down to the studs” — work estimated to cost more than $1 million.
The Godwins say Farmers rejected that recommendation after its own testing suggested the house could mostly be cleaned. The insurer instead paid the family about $80,000 for cleaning and repairs, they said.
Farmers said it could not comment on individual claims but said in a statement that its “goal is to pay claims quickly and fairly, taking into account the circumstances of the loss and the terms of the policy.”
The Godwins are among the 38% of Los Angeles fire survivors who report they have already run out of, or soon will run out of, additional living expenses (ALE), or insurance money that helps pay for temporary housing after a loss.
Without that money, the couple says they are left paying both the mortgage on their damaged home and rent for temporary housing.
“Looking at our rent and looking at how long it’s going to take, because they’ve done nothing to get this house back, it’s an entirely frightening situation,” Chauncy Godwin said.
Still, the couple says they are prepared for a prolonged fight.
“We’ll fight for as long as it takes,” Libby Godwin said.
A check on the rebuilding process after the Eaton Fire. Lolita Lopez reports for the NBC4 News at 3 p.m. on Monday March 9, 2026.
Next door, John Maust says his family is in a similar dispute with Farmers over whether their smoke-damaged home requires structural remediation or can be cleaned.
“The window was melted shut,” Maust said while pointing to damage outside the home.
Unlike the Godwins, Maust, his wife and their three young children made the difficult decision to move back in. Maust said he and his wife had serious concerns about possible contamination.
“Did we do enough?” he said. “That was our biggest concern.”
Maust said Farmers accused his family last year of delaying repairs and prematurely cut off their remaining ALE benefits. He said the company provided $135,000 for cleaning and repairs, far below the family’s policy limit and short of the $1.5 million their contractor estimated would be needed to restore the home.
“We said, OK, we need to try to get the house back in order, use what little money we received, and the rest we will do our best out of pocket,” Maust said.
Farmers declined to comment on Maust’s case. In a court filing responding to a lawsuit filed by the family, the company denied “each and every allegation.”
For Maust, the dispute has left a lingering fear that his home could be making his family sick.
“We hope we did it right,” Maust said. “I hope we did enough.”