Villas at Playa Vista - Sausalito — Attraction in Los Angeles

I've lived here for three months now with my husband. The complex is beautiful, really just as the pictures make it seem, but that's where my praise stops. The entire month of September 2016 was plagued by constant fire alarm testing. I don't mean the secondary alarm for individual units, these were the building wide alarms. The ones that leave your ears ringing and send your animals running for the closet. Residents would receive a text or email warning that the alarm testing was taking place, but promising that it would only last a few minutes. What a bold faced LIE. On numerous occasions the alarm would go off for 15-20 minutes at a time. If it were going off in another building you'd hear it over the sound of your TV or music with the windows and doors shut tight. Every text and email promised that this test would be the last, but it went on for the entire month. People were completely pissed, and Sausalito was forced to compensate residents for boarding their animals during the tests. Yes, we had to board our animals elsewhere, it was that loud. My neighbor takes care of an elderly woman who is completely immobile, I felt awful for her. I work and study from home and was forced to vacate on days that I knew heavy testing would occur. At one point I just left for a week to get away from it. I feel like I should have had those days of my rent refunded because of how inhabitable my apartment was. First world problems, I know, but when you're paying nearly $3k in rent you kind of expect to live in your apartment. Speaking of the price tag, it's high. So you'd think the amenities wouldn't cost extra, oh but they do. To reserve one of the common rooms is a whopping $350 for three hours with a $500 refundable deposit. I guess I won't be hosting book club at my place. There are plenty of other little things that annoy residents to no end: For some reason packages are delivered to three different places and often left in piles on the floor in the mail room. The elevator in our building went through a 3 week period of of breaking every single day. It would work randomly but I considered my apt a 5th floor walk-up for a little while there. Think you've paid your deposit/rent/utilities on time? Think again. I just received a notice that I was under-charged for my security deposit in August 2016... it's October. They don't care that it was their mistake, that they failed to notify me, or that it's been nearly three months. I'm expected to pay for it.

I love Playa Vista, you can't find a better area. Maybe these issues will go away as the complex reaches maturity (it's brand new). But in all honesty, some of this stuff is so aggravating and constant. If you don't have to live here for work or school, definitely consider...

Eh. Average.

Brand new complex. Some issues with that. For example my door bell wasn't wired up at all. I'm the first occupant of my unit. They sent a few repair guys in and the options was for them to tear through walls to install the wiring [nope, they can do that after I move out] or install a wireless system. Somehow that service ticket got forgotten about at some point and I never followed up on it. Why? The doorbell would be useless because....

.. The whole complex is a ant farm. A big maze. You can forget about delivery completely at this location. Its a secure building but you will have to go pick up your delivery food outside since the delivery guy won't be able to get in, or if you do buzz him in [assuming he goes to the correct entrance... they're not clearly labelled as such], its 99% likely he'll go to the wrong building/elevator and take your pizza or whatever to the wrong unit.

Was that 4229? Or 2429? Building 4 2nd floor unit 29? Or was that Building 2, 4th floor unit 29?

Oh and the mail box numbers don't match the unit numbers so the postal office and parcel delivery guys get screwed up on that to.

Postal boxes are 3 digits but your unit is 4 digit. The post master/post office can open the doors and see the actual unit numbers on the inside of each box, but the UPS/Fedex people cannot.

So basically there's a high probability of having your mail/parcels go uncollected or missing. Parcels may get delivered to the front rental office sometimes, or they may get dumped on the floor at a random mailbox room.

I have all my mail forwarded to my office but if you rely on receiving parcels or high value items, forget it. Even the post office as said "cheese it" and dumps parcels on the floor even though there is keyed parcel boxes nearby.

Out of living in a few countries and numerous large cities, this is the worst parcel/mail setup I've seen.

Everything else is fine, the grounds are kept up/maintained, There is security patrols at late night , and my neighbors are mostly quiet so that's a plus.

They used recycled water for all the plants and stuff, so the smell can be a bit funky if you want the windows open.

Personally I'm giving this place a big pass once my lease is up, I've had better experiences with older complexes in Playa Del Rey and Marina Del Rey.

Oh and the fire alarms? I dodged that bullet. Apparently the complex failed the Fire inspection for a few weeks in a row. This resulted in days upon days of fire alarms going off in the morning.

I was at work but for folks who work/live at home, they were driven absolutely insane by it. I...

DO NOT MOVE HERE!!! I have lived in multiple luxury buildings in NYC and LA. I unfortunately moved here with my toddler and husband after the LA fires. Where to begin with this terrible building? Run by an absolutely incompetent and insensitive building manager Justin and his team. We moved in and a week later we found disgusting termites in our apartment chewing through the cheap wood in the walls crawling all over the floor, our rug, where our toddler plays, ruining our furniture. The infestation required multiple visits from the exterminator and toxic chemicals to be sprayed. We have a two year old child and this was not a safe environment for her. The management knew they had termites in the apartment next door and still chose to lease this apartment to us without checking if there was an infestation. Willful negligence. In addition, there are homeless people living in the hallways of this “luxury building”, urinating and defecating in the hallways. When asked what they are doing about maintaining the safety of the building management laughs and puts their hands up. Because our safety and wellbeing is a joke to them. To top it off I was stuck in the elevator in this building with my two year old for over an hour with no recourse. My poor daughter was terrified, crying and I didn’t know what to do. The “help” button in the elevator kept dropping the call and I could not get through to anyone. Traumatizing event and my daughter is scared of elevators now. The last straw for me is the fire alarm testing that is going on now and instead of having a plan they decide to tell us the whole building and every apartment will have ear shattering blaring from 10 am to 5 pm all week long. How can a child live in this condition let alone adults? I feel bad for folks who have pets. When I asked the management team about the plan regarding the fire alarm testing they started to yell at ME! Insane level of ignorance and incompetence at this property. The manager Justin told me when he had fire alarm testing he removed his child from his apartment. That’s a great luxury Justin! So glad you are an empathetic manager who understands that not everyone has that luxury. Instead of approaching the situation with kindness and thoughtful planning he decides to speak rudely to me and act as if I’m the problem here. Needless to say I will be moving as soon as possible. See pictures for proof of the horrid conditions in this...