Source: https://www.washingtonian.com/, April 13, 2022
By: Marisa M. Kashin

One frigid morning in January 2021, in the dead of pre-vaccine winter, Reem Sadik stared at the open ceiling of her home in DC’s Palisades neighborhood and tried to process what the construction crew was telling her. Seconds earlier, they’d discovered that a major structural beam—one tasked with holding up the back of the house—was so rotted that it was crumbling apart. The home, in other words, could collapse. Says Sadik: “I went into survival mode.” Read more.