One of my favorite recent stories is this one, which concerns a survey of historic homes in Manhattan Beach.
It stemmed from concern by one of the ladies conducting the work that residents might think something nefarious was going on when they spotted someone in their neighborhood with a clipboard. But it turned into an interesting history lesson.
http://tbrnews.com/news/manhattan_beach/manhattan-beach-historian-searches-for-historic-homes-and-businesses/article_ab801700-a7e3-11e4-8036-bff3b7cce016.html
