David Reyes has lived in Summerlin for 22 years. He's a freelance software engineer who works from a home office, builds things for a living, and generally minds his own business. In August 2022, a monsoon storm changed the trajectory of his life, cost him tens of thousands of dollars, and eventually led him to build VegasRebuild, an independent contractor directory that didn't exist when he needed it most.

We sat down with David to talk about what happened, what he learned, and why he spent months building a free resource for Las Vegas homeowners.

The Night Everything Went Wrong

Real702: Take us back to August 2022. What happened?

David Reyes: It was a monsoon storm, nothing unusual for late summer in the valley. But the drainage around my house couldn't handle the volume. Water got into my home office. This is where I work every day, where my equipment is, where my livelihood is. I needed help immediately.

Real702: What did you do?

DR: I called the first restoration company I could find. It was 11 PM. They answered, they came out, they set up drying equipment. Four days later they packed up and told me the job was done. I thought the problem was behind me.

Real702: But it wasn't.

DR: Not even close. Eight months later, I started noticing a smell. I pulled off a section of drywall and found black mold floor to ceiling inside my walls. The original contractor had dried the surface, but they never checked inside the wall cavities. In Las Vegas, the outside dries fast because of the desert air. But inside the wall? The moisture stays trapped. It doesn't evaporate. It just sits there and grows mold.

The Cost of Getting It Wrong

Real702: How bad was the damage?

DR: The remediation cost $34,000. That included tearing out drywall, treating the framing, replacing insulation, clearance testing, and rebuilding. It was a full gut of the affected areas.

Real702: What did insurance cover?

DR: $8,100. That's it. The rest came out of pocket. The original claim had been closed because the first contractor said the job was done. Reopening it and arguing that the mold was a direct result of inadequate drying was a process I wouldn't wish on anyone. The insurance company's position was that the initial mitigation was completed and signed off on. Getting them to acknowledge the connection between poor workmanship and the mold took documentation I barely had.

Real702: That's a $26,000 gap between what insurance paid and what the work actually cost.

DR: Yes. And the thing is, if the first contractor had done the job properly, if they had used moisture meters inside the wall cavity, if they had checked behind the drywall before signing off, none of the mold remediation would have been necessary. The entire $34,000 expense was preventable.

The Research Phase

Real702: At what point did you start thinking about building something?

DR: After the mold was dealt with and I could think clearly again, I sat down and did what I do professionally: I researched the problem. I spent three weeks reading contractor reviews, forum threads, insurance guides, state licensing databases, and IICRC certification records. I was trying to answer a simple question: how do you find a legitimate restoration contractor in Las Vegas?

Real702: And?

DR: There was no centralized resource. The information existed in fragments. You could check a contractor's license on the Nevada State Contractors Board website. You could search IICRC's directory for certified technicians. You could read Google reviews and try to filter the fake ones. But nobody had pulled it all together into one place and applied consistent evaluation criteria. Every homeowner was starting from zero, just like I did at 11 PM on a monsoon night.

Real702: So you built it yourself.

DR: I'm a software engineer. Building things is what I do. I figured if I was going to spend weeks researching contractors anyway, I might as well structure that research in a way that other people could use.

What VegasRebuild Actually Does

Real702: Walk us through the site. What does a homeowner find when they go to VegasRebuild?

DR: It's an independent directory of vetted restoration contractors serving the Las Vegas Valley. Every contractor listed has been evaluated on eight criteria: Nevada license verification, IICRC certification, emergency response time, insurance claim capability, whether they have in-house adjusters, verified customer reviews, equipment ownership, and reconstruction capability. There are no paid placements. Nobody pays to be listed or ranked.

Real702: How many contractors are in the directory?

DR: Twenty, as of now. That might sound small, but it's intentional. I'm not trying to list every contractor with a phone number. I'm trying to list the ones that meet a real standard. If a contractor can't verify their license, or doesn't hold current IICRC certification, they don't make the list. Period.

Real702: You also have guides on the site, not just the directory.

DR: Right. The directory is the core, but I also wrote guides on topics I had to learn the hard way: what to do in the first 24 hours after water damage, how to file an insurance claim properly, what questions to ask a mold remediation contractor before you hire them, how to spot inadequate drying. All of it comes from my experience. I'm not writing generic content. I'm writing from the perspective of someone who got burned and spent months learning what I should have known from the beginning.

Living in Las Vegas as a Homeowner

Real702: You've been in Summerlin for 22 years. How has the valley changed from a homeowner's perspective?

DR: The growth is the obvious answer, but the thing people don't talk about is how the infrastructure hasn't always kept pace. Drainage is a real issue in parts of the valley. Older neighborhoods were built before the flood control district had the system it has now. Slab leaks are incredibly common because of the hard water and soil conditions. Evaporative coolers, which half the valley still uses, create moisture problems that people in humid climates would never deal with because their homes are built to handle moisture. Ours aren't. Las Vegas homes are built for a desert, and when water shows up where it's not supposed to be, the results can be severe.

Real702: What's the one thing you wish every Las Vegas homeowner knew?

DR: Buy a moisture meter. They cost $30. After my experience, I now own three of them, and I check under every sink in my house once a month. The damage from water isn't the water itself. It's the moisture you don't know about, sitting inside a wall or under a floor, growing mold for months while you go about your life thinking everything is fine. By the time you can see it or smell it, the remediation bill is already in the thousands.

Why It Matters Locally

Real702: VegasRebuild is specifically for Las Vegas. Why not expand to other cities?

DR: Because the problems are specific to this climate and this market. The desert creates unique conditions: rapid surface drying that masks hidden moisture, caliche soil that doesn't absorb water, extreme heat that accelerates mold growth once moisture is present, and a construction style built for an arid environment. A contractor who does great work in Phoenix or Tucson might not understand the specific challenges of a Las Vegas slab leak or a monsoon flood in a neighborhood with inadequate drainage. I built this for the valley because I live in the valley, and the resource I needed was one that understood the valley.

Real702: What's next for the site?

DR: More contractors as I find ones that meet the standard. More guides based on the questions homeowners keep asking. And I'm working on a tool that helps homeowners document water damage in real time for insurance claims, because documentation is where most people lose money. They don't take enough photos, they don't record timestamps, they don't get written estimates before work starts. I want to make that process harder to mess up.

Where to Find VegasRebuild

David's full contractor directory, homeowner guides, and insurance claim resources are available at vegasrebuild.com. The site is free to use, accepts no paid placements, and is updated as new contractors are vetted and added.

If you've dealt with water damage, mold, or fire damage in the Las Vegas Valley and have a story to share, reach out to us at Real702. We cover the people and projects that make this city work.