First, I want to preface this by saying that I am not a resident of Crenshaw Village. My wife and I viewed a few of the apartments in the complex. Here was our impressions:

The price was excellent. In the Los Angeles area, it's almost impossible to find a 1 bedroom for less than $900. Furthermore, it was quite spacious for the price. The
same realty company owns basically the whole 2 or 3 blocks around the rental office and the properties did appear to be well-kept. The property manager seemed to be genuinely concerned about the upkeep of the area. Plus the apartments are right near a shopping center that has a Wal-Mart and other stores, and very close to a mall. So, it has all of this going for it.

The first con was that the apartments seemed to be roach infested. The ones we viewed didn't have creepy crawlers pouring down from the ceiling or anything, but they were there, particularly in the kitchen cabinets. What really bothered us was that all of the units had been re-carpeted and repainted. They would have at least exterminated before they did any improvements, yet there were still roaches. Not a good sign. To his credit the property manager didn't try to downplay the problem, insisted that they were currently working on it. Another is the area. Crenshaw Village is located in the Baldwin Park neighborhood. To get there we drove through parts of Ladera Heights and Angeles Vista, which are very nice and affluent --------American neighborhoods. After crossing Stocker street onto Santa Rosalia, we noticed a marked decline in...er..."niceness", such as graffiti, an abandoned storefront, and transients on the corner. We passed a few "questionable" figures within the complex; two women wearing bandannas and coats with marijuana leaves imprinted on the back, and a young man with extremely baggy pants who gave us the stink eye. Even so, we wouldn't classify it as "ghetto", meaning it doesn't approach the gang-torn images of Compton or South Central. Overall, the complex itself seemed very quiet, there was no trash scattered around, and the lawns look well-maintained. Crenshaw Village also has a lack of designated parking, although we were told we could purchase a garage for an extra $20 per month.

The biggest turn-offs for us was the lack of stove and refrigerator. When asked why the apartments were not furnished with these two items (which we thought were required in all rental units), the reply was that tenants kept stealing them. We were unsure of whether to laugh at this or be very concerned about the caliber of neighbors we'd be acquiring. The dearth of public transportation was a non-selling point for my wife, who is very enthusiastic about bicycling and public transport (though to be fair we did see a lot of bicyclist nearby, which cheered her up). There is a bus line nearby, but no light rail lines.

So there you go. They're really not bad apartments, and if you're desperate for a place you could easily do much worse. Really, the complex looks very nice and apartments we saw were huge for the price they were asking. However the visible roach problem, lack of stove and fridge, and lack of more public transportation options led us to not choose Crenshaw Village. AD2Hw9Wn8Umb3NN1w1jt

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