First off, if you are thinking about buying a Ranch Mirada "condo". Dont. The floors are thin and you can hear every step the person above you is making. Every cough, snore, argument, TV show. Clear as a bell.
I rented at Rancho Mirada for three years and with that one exception, I loved it there. (see my earlier review). I came home one night around December 3rd of 2006 and there was a note on my door from the apartment manager and it said at the top: "EXCITING THINGS ARE HAPPENING TO RANCHO MIRADA!!". Basically it said they were going condo, and they were not renewing leases, so if you were not going to buy your unit, then you had to get out by the end of your lease renewal date. There were 14 people in our complex that had leases ending December 31st. These people had to take down Christmas trees, cancel trips to visit loved ones for the holidays, find a place to rent, come up with deopsit money, come up with money for moving vans, pack and relocate all at Christmass time with less than 30 days to do it. If that isn't the greediest, most inhumane thing I had ever heard of! After that delightful bit of news, the contractors moved inand took over.They parked in peoples spaces, dinged our car doors with their vans and trucks, took out all the lighting along the sidewalks and left the fixtures for weeks, with wires exposed, leaving us to walk in the dark. No consideration whatsoever. We were treated like trashy vermin who were in their way. A couple left a note on my door saying they had bought my unit and wanted me to stay on as a tenant. I was so relieved. Several months went by and I kept checking with the apartment manager asking when I was going to hear from my new landlords. I was curious about what my new rent would be, and I was assured several times by her and the real estate agent (that took over her office) that things were going smoothly with the sale and to be patient. Another two months went by and I called the office once more time, and a new real estate person answered. A smug and making it clear I was intruding on his time, sleeze ball of a real estate agent told me that he was the "new guy" and the deal on my apartment had "fallen through" a long time ago. He was flippant and didn't seem to give a hoot that he had just told someone they were out of a home. So there I was, with about a month to find a new place myself because no one cared enough to let me know what was going on. I am a human being! This is where I lived! Not once did anyone think that it might matter to me where I would be living throught the summer. Now that I had fallen through the cracks and didn't initially move when I COULD have, I was having to move in July and all the rents were higher due to rent gouging because of condo conversions. I think that condo conversions should be regulated and a decent reasonable disclosure should be sent to tenants of apartment that might be involved in a potential condo conversion. I can't believe other people treat fellow humans this way. I have written letters to our legislators, the govenor and our state senator with this story. There has to be some regulations and legislation in place to protect rentors from greasy, greedy, slum-lord, slime like these condo conversion "specialists". Shame on them. I hope they slept well at night and had a wonderful Christmas that year. Dont buy a condo here for principal alone. They are old, overpriced and have thin walls and floors. They were "renovated" shoddily by people who were in a hurry and cut corners to churn out the newer looking units. It is a bad investment, and run by people I would not wipe my shoes on. They are filth.

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 05/10/2008
I, too, was treated like an object, one that needed to be "taken out" to the curb when the conversion experts descended on Rancho Mirada Apts in December 2005 (not 2006). My daughter and two very young grandchildren moved into Rancho Mirada in January 2005. We had wonderful neighbors and felt very safe living in this small rental community. The same note was taped to our door just before Christmas of 2005 and was followed by instructions to remove any Christmas decorations from the balconies; then to park in the lot of the church next door because the apt lot had to be repaved (the threat for non-compliance was towing at the owner's expense); we were forced to walk on boards where there should have been sidewalks; subjected to spray painting on the balcony, well into late afternoon hours. Everything was rush, rush, and we were definitely in the way and not vacating the premises fast enough to suit the conversion experts. NOT ONCE was there even a semblance of an apology for any inconvenience. (We were, afterall, still paying rent!) I will admit to taking a great deal of pleasure out of seeing that the units are still for sale, almost 2-1/2 years later. Shame on them is right! They behaved without integrity, ethics, or conscience and so totally deserve to have lost their shirts in the process. "A rose by any other name is still a rose", and a one-bedroom apartment by any other name (like, for example, condo) is STILL a one-bedroom apartment.

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