My brother also had an adventure with Verizon DSL in Hacienda Heights CA.
He was struggling with extreme latency and slow speeds (less than modem
speed) and Verizon kept telling him to check his inside phone wires, DSL
filters, etc. He went into the attic numerous times to double check the
wires. Finally after he got mad and persisted, Verizon switched his DSL to
another phone switching circuit (or whatever it's called) at the telco and
then he finally got decent speed! But they gave him the run around for a
while.