I really like living in this building. It’s the biggest building on Hollywood that is east of the 101 and it’s got such a morbid and colorful history. The Black Dahlia lived here. So did many drug addicts and bums, although they’re for the most part kicked out now. Back when it was a hotel in the 1950s, police brawled with the lushes that they kicked out for sleeping in the hallways. Old people die here, the coroner parks in front. Crazy people yelling at the top of their lungs have been escorted out of here by police. A suicide happened last year, someone jumped from one of the upper floors and was found on the alleyway next to Harvard & Stone. It’s a very big, dramatic, beautiful and solid Hollywood building. If there is a major earthquake (which will 90% likely happen before 2050), we will all survive due to how strong and well-built this thick concrete building is.
PROPERTY COMPANY:
With gentrification comes property companies foaming at the mouth, then high rent prices, and then an exodus of all of the crazy people that gave a story to this building. I have lived here for almost four years, before the new property company purchased this building and substantially increased rent prices, and the only thing I give credit to Polaris/M West Holdings is that they got rid of the roach infestation that Statewide Enterprises never could do. Literally, roaches used to crawl out of the drains en masse. Otherwise I really do not like Polaris/M West Holdings and think their whitewashing/gentrification project to this building is rather despicable.
I don’t know who these people are or if they even live in this area but they seem to have grand ideas on what they want done to this building and who they want living here. Last year, they offered $8,000+ to all of the occupied units to move out so that they could undergo construction on the building and make it into an ultra-posh dream building to justify the $500/month and climbing rent increases to each of the units. I am one of the few tenants that did NOT accept their $8,000 offer to move out. For those like me who didn’t accept the offer, we’d have an increase to our rent on top of the yearly rent control increase (thank goodness for rent control as Polaris/M West are extremely consistent when it comes to increasing my rent each year for as much as they can legally get). Ultimately, Polaris/M West reneged on the deal for the 30 or so units that agreed to move out, decided not to pay anyone but went through construction anyway.
They most recently replaced our sexy chaise lounges in the lobby with ugly business furniture. I could see them one day having a self-congratulatory presentation in our business lobby about this building’s million dollar turnover with their ‘aggressive leasing’, as I quote one of M West’s successful ‘case studies’ on their website. It would be complete with upwards graphs, corporate high fives and champagne before they go back to their big houses in the hills.
MANAGER:
Brent, haha, is not a jerk, but pretty damn flaky when it comes to maintenance requests. I believe he pays more attention to the many young women with small dogs who moved into the building in the past year, so good luck with getting repairs done if you’re not one of them! It’s funny to read all of these gushing five star reviews about him promptly emailing them back because he -never- -ever- -ever- emails me back. I am pretty damn courteous and respectful too. I try to be reasonable and not demanding, but unfortunately I am also not a girl, nor a girl that owns a small dog. The one time that he sent a maintenance guy to my unit, two out of three of the repairs that he made broke within a day. At least the leaky faucet stayed fixed.
Maintenance request fails:
- Cracked window since mid 2014
- Palm tree leaf and bamboo hitting/obstructing cracked window
- Broken sink drain (maintenance guy came, fixed it, and it broke the next day)
- Broken bathroom tile partition (maintenance guy oddly super glued it instead of screwing it back in, it fell off the next day)
- Broken bathtub drain
- Water pressure issues for hot water (biggest small issue)
Overall, I generally love this building, its colorful history, the people and the peaceful yet cool atmosphere that Polaris/M West is trying to kill and will likely stay here for a long time. Maybe I need to be more of a dick about it, but the repair requests are ones I can overlook on a day to day basis. I am hopeful that as for this avaricious property company that owns the building that ‘this too shall pass’.
Useful: 23 Funny: 14 Cool: 8
3/25/2015