I've lived in one of the towers for a month. My review is mixed. I feel safe because Patrol is always around (even if they are looking to ticket cars) and repairs are handled swiftly. The area of town is great - very close to the Fairfax district, The Grove, Trader Joe's Ralphs and Walgreen's. You could walk to these places if ambitious. But the downsides are huge. One - every "extra" will cost you a pretty penny, including the gym, a parking spot, most other amenities. The "P" in Park La Brea stands for "Profit". Two - the parking shortage is HORRENDOUS. I myself have driven around for up to an hour looking for a spot anywhere near my apartment. Once, I ended up parking about 1/3 mile away, which is far when you consider how high the rent is. Three - you have to change your cash into a special Park La Brea "credit card" to use the laundry facilities instead of simply using quarters like very other complex in the nation. The laundry rooms are poorly maintained and I've seen cockroaches. Again, unacceptable when you consider the high rent. Three - it's damn impossible to know your away around the gargantuan place. I've been lost both by car and on foot. The streets and towers are poorly marked - someone should have put some effort into identifying areas with color-coded signs. The tower numbers are the size of a postage stamp. So, if you're willing to sacrifice character and charm for a fairly nice and safe apartment in a convenient area, it's a good bet. If you want ameneties - and the complex has 'em all - look elsewhere because you'll get gauged in the wallet. Last, you must be either very laid back of very athletic to deal with the parking horror - because you'll be in for a hike to your apartment.

User Responses
From: JRFrogman	Date: 11/30/2007
I agree with the issues listed here. You really should not have to deal with these kinds of problems for the rent you pay here. As the Rental Agents were fond of saying, "This is Park La Brea", as if the name meant something. As someone that is familiar with quality, don't let them fool you into believing that this place is quality. It looks good but quality needs to be more than skin deep. Make sure you like what you are getting for your money. If all you care about is location, this may be just the place for you. If you care about service, take a little warning from the reviews posted here. A note to people that get lost here, just keep track of the large white tower across Wilshire from PLB. You can always keep your orientation from this.
From: FedUpPlbResident	Date: 02/11/2008
RE: this post. The reason residents are so angry with the management are that they are so dumb and duplicitous, they make things worse. Then when you complain, they stonewall, usually because they are inexperienced and incompetent and I guess because that's how they're instructed to handle things by upper management. Two relevant examples: 1)Regarding notorious parking issues: Spent months of construction demolishing green space to make new parking spots, then promptly redrew the parking lines each big enough for two cars. Result=no real gain in parking spots! Meanwhile, "Reserved" (extra $$) spots sit empty. 2) when they decided to privatize the laundry to the current company, a few years back, they promised us the benefits of moving from coins to cards. THe machines fit more! (bs) WOuld clean better (BS). They told us that the washing machines would go up in price at 5 PM and on weekends--leaving aside the ethics of screwing working people by jacking up the prices at nights and weekends, the machines in my room actually switch to higher price between 4:30 and 4:45. Calls to company and to PLB have not had any results. According to the looks of some signs near the card loading machines, PLB is having trouble resolving their problems with this fly by night laundry company too--still cant use credit cards to load laundry cards as promised. Company very slow to service machines, which would bother you if you shared a room of 4 driers with 2000 people and one of the driers was always broken. Rooms are often poorly maintained despite the fact that they are used as bathrooms by the maintenance staff.

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