I moved in two months ago. I was under a severe time crunch and basically had no time to shop around. The rent is ridiculously high for a studio. But it looked decent so I signed the lease. I'd read all the reviews on here beforehand and it really made me nervous.

However, the parking seemed secure, the building seemed safe. Having a gym and laundry on site is really handy. And everyone seems very friendly [aside from the girl who showed me the apartment, who seemed completely annoyed with her job]. Also, I have only ever seen ONE bug. A little silverfish I think. No spiders, no cockroaches. So whatever that problem was I guess is gone now.

But they coat everything in the apartment with tons of sloppy paint. There is paint on the floor in corners and thick paint in big blobs on the wall. Of course you don't notice those little things on the walk through. I think they just short cut a lot of things to try to make it look good, but they're way too sloppy. The apartment wasn't even clean when I moved in. They'd left the sliding door open for a month and everything was filthy and covered in dust. The shower had big greasy boot prints in it. I told management about it and they offered to have someone come in and clean it while I was away, but I'd already cleaned and unpacked everything, and didn't want strangers in my apartment.

One time I got a phone call stating that they were letting maintenance into my apartment to check some things that day. Well I was already at work and didn't receive the message until after they'd gone into my apartment. I was really unhappy about that.

Then today I get home to discover that somehow burglars had jimmied the 2 deadbolts on the door. Not much was stolen, but I called security and he came down and barely looked at anything at all. I asked if I should call the police and he said not to bother. Seems like he just wants less negative attention brought to the apartment complex. He tried to imply that I hadn't locked the door properly, which is BS.

I had every intention on waiting a few months and writing a good report about this place, because it seemed ok despite the little things. but when you write it all down, it doesn't sound that great afterall.

I'm fairly certain I will be leaving after my lease is up...

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 03/11/2008
Start looking for another lease now. Get recommendations from this website or friends. It makes me wonder if all these burglaries are an "inside job." Yes, file a report with the police.
From: Anonymous	Date: 03/11/2008
Did you know that it is illegal for the landlord to not give you 24 hour notice if they need to enter your apartment? And you have the right to refuse to let them in if you???re not present. If there is no emergency to go into your apartment (such as flood of water pouring out of your place), then they absolutely need to give you 24 hour notice. I also live in this hell and I am waiting for the first chance to leave Woodcliff because management is terrible and the place is not that pretty except on the outside. Anyway, I also got a phone call at work once from management "informing" me that they were about to enter my apartment to check on something. I asked them not to enter; they said the maintenance guy was already on the way. I told them if they entered without my presence I was going to sue them because it was not enough to "inform" me that they were entering my place. The law stipulates that the landlord must request a permission from the tenant to enter the place, and the request must be in writing and should not be forwarded to the tenant less than 24 hours from the time they need to enter the apartment, which this ignorant management didn't know. Can you believe this? They are running a rental business and they have no information about tenant laws. I am shocked that they are still doing it to other tenants. Regarding your key, here???s something interesting everyone should know about Woodcliff Apartments. Some apartments have the exact same locks; in other words, your key could also open some of your neighbors??? doors. I found out about this when I gave my key to a friend to check on my place while I was out on vacation, and she forgot which apartment number I lived in and missed it by one door, so she ended up opening my neighbor???s apartment and was shocked to see strangers there, then she realized she was not in my apartment, and the neighbors were shocked to see a stranger having a key to their door. My friend was confused and so were my neighbors, who were very nice and understanding, but we all were outraged to find out that we all had the same locks on our doors. You should call the police and tell them this story. If cops knocked on my door and asked for a statement, I???ll be happy to tell them about this story. Management doesn???t want you to call the cops because they don???t want to bear the expense of changing all locks on all 300 apartment doors. One more comment about management entering your place. Have you noticed they constantly need to enter your place for whatever lame reason they have? They???ve done this to me and I always wanted to be present when they got in because I don???t trust them, but I lost many work hours over this. You really don???t have privacy in this place because management always has a reason to bother you and enter your apartment. I don???t feel comfortable living here and I couldn't feel at home due to lack of privacy.
From: losangeles1979	Date: 06/08/2008
couldn't submit my review tonight, so here it is: Nice landscaping, OK building, lots of people I've lived here for 4 years, 2 years on the southern end and 2 years up near the main entrance. Overall very happy but there are always a few things that get on your nerves after a while. I'll start with the good things: 1) They do a great job of the landscaping, I know that sounds trivial but it's very nice. 2) The gym is pretty good, no free weights but some decent machines including eliptical. 3) The management is generally on the ball, usually attending to maintenance issues within a day or two. 4) The location is great - near the 10 and 405...10 minutes to Santa Monica, 15 minutes to LAX (in light traffic). 5) There are 2 pools and 2 jacuzzis. 6) There's a good mix of ethnicities, (a good thing) not meaning to sound racist but this is stuff the management by law can't tell you. Quite a few families with kids, UCLA students and by the looks of all the scrubs, a lot of people in the medical field. Hardly anyone over the age of 40. In general the neighbors have been quiet and keep to themselves. Now the not so good things: 1) Overland Ave is very busy, especially during the commute, and getting in and out of the garage can be scary, especially when you're trying to get out and there's a delivery truck parked in front of the building. I've personally witnessed at least 2 accidents here, and narrowly avoided a few myself. 2) The street also creates a lot of noise with trucks going up and down, and also a lot of dust/pollution. 3) There's a private school behind the building that creates a lot of traffic in the afternoons, which can make getting out tricky as well. I don't know if the school creates a lot of noise because I've never lived at the back of the building. 4) It seems that the majority of people that have a balcony apartment are smokers, I guess that's why they like the apartments. The problem is that when they go out on their balcony to smoke, all their smoke goes straight up into the apartment above them. This also goes for anyone who cooks really smelly food. I guess these issues are in pretty much every big building that allows smoking, so although it sucks, the only solution is to not get a balcony apartment. 5) No pets

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