Palm Tree Inn — Hotel in Los Angeles

I had just driven non stop from Auburn, Washington (about 30 minutes south of Seattle) to Northridge, California because I am a courier and I had a package to deliver. My daughter and I left Auburn at around 3:00 PM on Saturday July 25th 2015 and arrived at our destination at 10:30 AM the next morning. ||||After that, we made a bee line to Norm's for some delicious pancakes but that's another review and then we needed to sleep. We were pretty close to Hollywood and every budget type inn or motel that I stopped in at was either all booked up or wouldn't take reservations until 3:00 PM so I tapped on my GPS and found the farthest motel from where we were sitting on the list and headed over. ||||The place we found was the Palm Tree Inn and it looked like your typical run down, low budget motel but it was early day and all I wanted was a few hours of sleep before hitting the road back to Washington. ||||I stepped inside the lobby and of course I was separated from the clerk by a nice thick piece of plexi-glass. I explained to the nice lady that I hadn't slept in over 28 hours and that all I wanted was a room with two beds so that my daughter and I could get a few hours sleep. She obliged and gave us room 237. She even discounted our room by $6.00 because I told her we'd be checking out by around 6:00 PM. ||||As she was running my credit card and I was filling out the guest slip, I noticed a poster on the wall inside her office. It was the cast of the show My Name is Earl with all of the cast's signatures and the motel was in the background. I asked the clerk if this was in fact the same motel where they had filmed the show and she responded with yes. Now I was excited. I am a HUGE Earl fan and I've seen every single episode of the show so to be getting a room at this legendary motel was a pretty cool thing for me. My daughter loves the show too so when I got in the car where she'd been waiting for me, I pointed out a new spot of concrete and said, "you see that? there used to be a swimming pool there". She thought that was cool but didn't really understand what I was getting at. I asked her if the place looked familiar to her and it really didn't at first glance. She asked if it was one of the motels that we had already tried and I said no but that we should look for a housekeeper named Catalina. (Nadine Velazquez's character from the show). ||||She immediately knew what I was talking about and nearly had a heart attack when she realized where we were. Even though we were so tired, we looked around and took some photos before going in for our naps.||||My first thought when I found out that this was the motel from the tv show was that they most likely had been paid pretty well for the use of their property and the rooms etc... so I was really hoping that the money had been reinvested back into the motel. Boy was I wrong. After giving it a bit more thought, I came to my own conclusion that the people who owned this motel when the show was being filmed must have took the money that they were paid and sold the motel and retired or moved away to do something else. I could be wrong but that is my assumption. ||||You can tell that they have started to renovate the place. Some of the doors are newly painted while others are not painted yet but do not be fooled, a newly painted green door does not mean that your room inside will be a finished remodel or update. ||||The first thing I noticed while we were walking to our room was that there were multiple rooms occupied by what seemed to be long term guests. I'm guessing that they actually live at the motel full time and don't check out. One room in particular had gratuitous amounts of marijuana smoke billowing out from the open window. ||||Inside our room was not what I expected. broken down hardly working air conditioning unit, disgustingly stained and filthy carpet, broken down damaged furniture and mattresses made of very thin material over very hard metal springs. The first thing I do in any room is check the beds for bugs and I'm pretty sure I found them. Both beds had multiple little things that looked like they could be dead bugs but my daughter insisted that they were just crumbs. They weren't alive anymore which was a good sign but there was still something there that shouldn't be. I opted to sleep on the bed with less unidentifiable little bits and slept on top of the comforter. Well, slept is a relative term here because the bed was so uncomfortable that it hurt. I got a whole 2 hours of very little rest before giving up altogether and going for a shower.||||The bathroom was a mess. The towels were stained and filled with holes. There was hair on the floor and in the tub and the workmanship was terrible. You can see where the old light fixtures and towel racks used to be due to the horrible patch jobs done on the walls and ceilings. There was no bar soap in the bathroom area. I later found some next to the sink after my shower located outside of the bathroom but they did offer 4 small packets of conditioning shampoo. I did use one on my head but only after I finally got it open by using my teeth. The bathroom window was left open but there was no bug screen in it anymore and the floor looked filthy too. The bath tub was brand new along with new marble wall coverings in the shower and a new Price Pfister tub faucet but the shower head was ancient and the water just trickled out of it making my rinse a bit tricky. Outside of the bathroom back in the room, they have installed a new marble counter with sink and under and next to the cabinetry is a mini fridge and a microwave oven. No safe, no coffee pot, no hair dryer, no closet, no hangers, no tourist information, no ice bucket, no real conveniences. There were a couple plastic cups and there was even one still sitting in the wardrobe/ entertainment center that had been left over from another guest. They had a flat screen tv in the room but we didn't use it but the coax cable running across the floor and up the wall not attached to anything was a nice touch. To say the least, this place was not worth the $80.00 that they charged me. I'd be more comfortable paying $30.00 for a room like that and even more comfortable paying less than that. ||||The fact that this motel was in a TV show makes it cool to a degree but if you're a fan of the show and want to experience this place. Do it from the outside. They filled the pool in with dirt and covered it with pavement and now it's parking spots. Not sure why they would do that in southern California of all places but the clerk told me it was expensive to maintain. I think this entire motel must be really expensive to maintain because they don't really seem to make much of an effort. ||||Do yourself a favor and do not stay at this inn unless you are going to be consumed by zombies and even then, the zombies might...

I had just driven non stop from Auburn, Washington (about 30 minutes south of Seattle) to Northridge, California because I am a courier and I had a package to deliver. My daughter and I left Auburn at around 3:00 PM on Saturday July 25th 2015 and arrived at our destination at 10:30 AM the next morning. ||||After that, we made a bee line to Norm's for some delicious pancakes but that's another review and then we needed to sleep. We were pretty close to Hollywood and every budget type inn or motel that I stopped in at was either all booked up or wouldn't take reservations until 3:00 PM so I tapped on my GPS and found the farthest motel from where we were sitting on the list and headed over. ||||The place we found was the Palm Tree Inn and it looked like your typical run down, low budget motel but it was early day and all I wanted was a few hours of sleep before hitting the road back to Washington. ||||I stepped inside the lobby and of course I was separated from the clerk by a nice thick piece of plexi-glass. I explained to the nice lady that I hadn't slept in over 28 hours and that all I wanted was a room with two beds so that my daughter and I could get a few hours sleep. She obliged and gave us room 237. She even discounted our room by $6.00 because I told her we'd be checking out by around 6:00 PM. ||||As she was running my credit card and I was filling out the guest slip, I noticed a poster on the wall inside her office. It was the cast of the show My Name is Earl with all of the cast's signatures and the motel was in the background. I asked the clerk if this was in fact the same motel where they had filmed the show and she responded with yes. Now I was excited. I am a HUGE Earl fan and I've seen every single episode of the show so to be getting a room at this legendary motel was a pretty cool thing for me. My daughter loves the show too so when I got in the car where she'd been waiting for me, I pointed out a new spot of concrete and said, "you see that? there used to be a swimming pool there". She thought that was cool but didn't really understand what I was getting at. I asked her if the place looked familiar to her and it really didn't at first glance. She asked if it was one of the motels that we had already tried and I said no but that we should look for a housekeeper named Catalina. (Nadine Velazquez's character from the show). ||||She immediately knew what I was talking about and nearly had a heart attack when she realized where we were. Even though we were so tired, we looked around and took some photos before going in for our naps.||||My first thought when I found out that this was the motel from the tv show was that they most likely had been paid pretty well for the use of their property and the rooms etc... so I was really hoping that the money had been reinvested back into the motel. Boy was I wrong. After giving it a bit more thought, I came to my own conclusion that the people who owned this motel when the show was being filmed must have took the money that they were paid and sold the motel and retired or moved away to do something else. I could be wrong but that is my assumption. ||||You can tell that they have started to renovate the place. Some of the doors are newly painted while others are not painted yet but do not be fooled, a newly painted green door does not mean that your room inside will be a finished remodel or update. ||||The first thing I noticed while we were walking to our room was that there were multiple rooms occupied by what seemed to be long term guests. I'm guessing that they actually live at the motel full time and don't check out. One room in particular had gratuitous amounts of marijuana smoke billowing out from the open window. ||||Inside our room was not what I expected. broken down hardly working air conditioning unit, disgustingly stained and filthy carpet, broken down damaged furniture and mattresses made of very thin material over very hard metal springs. The first thing I do in any room is check the beds for bugs and I'm pretty sure I found them. Both beds had multiple little things that looked like they could be dead bugs but my daughter insisted that they were just crumbs. They weren't alive anymore which was a good sign but there was still something there that shouldn't be. I opted to sleep on the bed with less unidentifiable little bits and slept on top of the comforter. Well, slept is a relative term here because the bed was so uncomfortable that it hurt. I got a whole 2 hours of very little rest before giving up altogether and going for a shower.||||The bathroom was a mess. The towels were stained and filled with holes. There was hair on the floor and in the tub and the workmanship was terrible. You can see where the old light fixtures and towel racks used to be due to the horrible patch jobs done on the walls and ceilings. There was no bar soap in the bathroom area. I later found some next to the sink after my shower located outside of the bathroom but they did offer 4 small packets of conditioning shampoo. I did use one on my head but only after I finally got it open by using my teeth. The bathroom window was left open but there was no bug screen in it anymore and the floor looked filthy too. The bath tub was brand new along with new marble wall coverings in the shower and a new Price Pfister tub faucet but the shower head was ancient and the water just trickled out of it making my rinse a bit tricky. Outside of the bathroom back in the room, they have installed a new marble counter with sink and under and next to the cabinetry is a mini fridge and a microwave oven. No safe, no coffee pot, no hair dryer, no closet, no hangers, no tourist information, no ice bucket, no real conveniences. There were a couple plastic cups and there was even one still sitting in the wardrobe/ entertainment center that had been left over from another guest. They had a flat screen tv in the room but we didn't use it but the coax cable running across the floor and up the wall not attached to anything was a nice touch. To say the least, this place was not worth the $80.00 that they charged me. I'd be more comfortable paying $30.00 for a room like that and even more comfortable paying less than that. ||||The fact that this motel was in a TV show makes it cool to a degree but if you're a fan of the show and want to experience this place. Do it from the outside. They filled the pool in with dirt and covered it with pavement and now it's parking spots. Not sure why they would do that in southern California of all places but the clerk told me it was expensive to maintain. I think this entire motel must be really expensive to maintain because they don't really seem to make much of an effort. ||||Do yourself a favor and do not stay at this inn unless you are going to be consumed by zombies and even then, the zombies might...

Save yourself time and trouble.AVOID THIS PLACE!!This was one of the worst experiences I have had since coming to Los Angeles, and certainly the most inexcusably rude behavior from a hotel owner/manager. I saw this hotel online showing very nice photos of rooms for $70 with luxury sunken tubs..these rooms are non existent. When I arrived with my husband we were charged $85 the owner demanded IDs and asked twice if we had pets. We do not. As I was leaving the office with my room key he scowled and warned me not to try and sneak any PETS in. the pictures of luxury rooms were posted in the lobby. There are no such rooms at this hotel. The rooms are FILTHY there are bedbugs, old used broken down furniture. When I asked about the rooms in the pictures the manager got very angry. . While I was checking in my husband returned to the car to have a smoke before going down to the room. The manager came out pounding on the car window and shouted at my husband. "You are SMOKER! I will not give you GOOD room..you will make STINK!" My husband assured him he followed rules and would certainly not smoke inside a hotel room. I was walking toward the room he had just rented us..I opened the door to find a very plain no frills room which was very dingy .The manager grabbed the key from me, "shooed"me from the room shouting with his angry voice.."No No This is GOOD room. I give you different room." He hurried to a room at the end of the walk and he flung open the door "THIS!" He insisted. I took a step inside and absolutely filthy room. The bathroom was disgusting the furniture,what there was, was broken with drawers missing, garbage on the floor, torn bedding with a huge hole in the spread. I was appalled and demanded an immediate refund. He reluctantly conceeded but I still haven't received the refund on myl acct even though.it was debit. As we went back toward the office another guest came out and began complaining to the manager that she and her son had been bitten all over by bed bugs and was demanding a new room or a refund. I honestly don't know how or why this place stays...