PodShare DTLA — Hotel in Los Angeles

When my friend and I had our Air BNB fall through he suggested that we try a podshare since he had heard so much about it. I was pretty hesitant of the idea just because I’m a little more introverted than he is but I thought, sure why not? We booked in DTLA and we had a late arrival for our check in. We drove around the block literally 10 times trying to find it so we called the front desk and had to be guided as to where there location was. That was a little frustrating but could easily be fixed with some signage out front.

Anyways, we make it inside and begin to check in and put our information in with Molly. Everything is going pretty good she gave us a tour and showed us to our beds. The idea in theory of a communal living situation sounded great, however, people are people and sometimes people just aren’t the cleanest. The entire time I just didn’t quite feel comfortable with the level of cleanliness of the podshare. We met some awesome and interesting people. But I just couldn’t help but smell weed my entire stay in that area, even as my friend and I talked to one guy, we was filling his pipe with weed inside of the kitchen to go smoke outside. I’m not a fan of smoking but the lingering smell of weed in the kitchen definitely didn’t sit well with me. But that is not my reason for the low review. As I walk back to my pod to start getting some stuff, I look down the corridor to see a guy, butt naked with his shorts hanging below his butt cheeks and hardly covering his pubic area. I quickly looked away and left with my friend to go to the store. When we come back to shower felt dirtier than we did before the shower. The stalls themselves were very unclean. The shower mats themselves were matted and dirty and looked like they hadn’t been washed in ages. And although I had cheap shower sandals to wear in the stall my friend did not. We decided to tough it out and just go to our beds and sleep. However, we found it super difficult to sleep because even with my noisecancelling earphones I could hear a loud chorus of snores in the background which made it extremely difficult to sleep. My friend and I also kept hearing a very loud ominous tap that we couldn’t quite place. When we stepped outside for some fresh air we knew we had to leave. (Weirdly enough people were still booking beds in the middle of the night which was very loud even in the pod area.) We started calling hotels to book a room and as soon as we heard of an availability we went back in to pack up. By this time is was 3am and as we were walking out I saw a man in his straight up boxer briefs half naked and totally okay with it. I knew that we made the right decision to leave at that moment.

Overall, my experience with podshare DTLA was not the best. If you are a light sleeper don’t book here. If you are a more private person don’t book here. If you value ease and comfort over difficulty and discomfort don’t book here. And if the management who responds to negatives reviews comes for me and tries to “justify” my experience saying that it’s “out of their control” you need a quick little lesson on Management and business owning 101. The customer is ALWAYS right. Even when they are dead wrong they are still right. They are paying for YOUR services and if they are bad through their perspective and you don’t improve on these things then YOU WILL FAIL. Businesses can only get better by using criticisms to further improve their accommodations and overall business. If the management can’t seem to do that then good luck on your overall longevity. (In all honesty the reason why I’m even writing this review is because of how infuriated I was for the lack of business savvy and complete rudeness of the person responding to the reviews.

Lastly, the reason why I’m even giving them Two stars instead of One is because of Molly. She was so sweet and accommodating. My friend and I almost endured a sleepless night...

NOTE: the 1-star is mainly for my experience with PodShare as a whole and not for this location itself. The actual DTLA location I would give 4-stars. Also this review is super long.

My friend and I stayed there in early August 2018. We got there around 9:30 at night and there was absolutely no signage so we had to call to see if we were in the right place. Molly checked us in and was super nice. After a long wait, we were informed that they had overbooked and there were no queen pods (the one we had booked) available. The manager assigned us two twin pods for the night and told us that we would be moved to a queen the next day. The beds were clean and very comfortable. The bathroom is tiny. No air conditioning so it was a very warm and sweaty. We were awoken around 3 AM to a woman loudly telling another employee that the manager had assigned us to the wrong pods and we were supposed to be at another location. Thankfully, we weren't moved in the middle of the night but it was very disruptive in the middle of the night and quite awkward to overhear. Fast forward to the next night and we're locked out because we don't know the gate code. Once we're inside, we are informed by the woman from the night before that we have been moved to another location. We were very confused because we had paid for the DTLA location and she told us that the location we were moving to wasn't even open yet. After waiting around for a long time, we were escorted by the woman to the other location which was about two blocks from the DTLA location. We got there and it looked empty from the outside. Upon entering, we looked around and found that nothing was finished. There were no TVs, no lounge area, no furniture in the kitchen, not even a trash can. There was running water, electricity, and Wi-Fi. The shower was small and concrete with nowhere to put anything. The bathroom sink was a huge basin with no counter space. At one point, the manager left to go help the other location and I guess he forgot to lock the front door. Three young men walked in, looked around, and left. They didn't have any luggage, didn't talk to us, and left the door ajar. That was by far the most unsettling incident. The manager came back to our location and struck up conversation with my friend, eventually inviting her to a warehouse party. That invitation was really weird and unwelcome. I stayed up until around 4 AM that night due to being freaked out by the sketchiness of the whole thing and it being so hot. Periodically throughout the night, more people kept arriving which also kept me up. In total, I slept about two hours. By the time morning rolled around, the number of guests in our unfinished PodShare had at least doubled. We had booked for another night but I did not want to stay there so my friend and I booked a hotel. We went over to the DTLA location to ask for a refund but we couldn't find anyone who worked there. We called the number and corresponded about a possible refund via text. I explained our whole experience in detail and they offered me a full refund for the unused night and $15 for the night before. Overall, the experience was terrible and I am definitely never staying at a PodShare again. My hope is that PodShare organizes better and no one else experiences the same...

I arrived at this place around 10:40pm after a long flight. As I walked up to my assigned pod, I was shocked to find out that there were two girls lying in my assigned pod. The manager came shortly after and told me that she was not expecting anybody to check-in that day as all the pods were full. I showed my confirmation email from Hotels.com as well as the email with the information about my assigned pod. Nevertheless, the manager kept telling me that it was not her fault which was extremely unprofessional. She just waited for Elvina to answer back to the problem and the alternative that she offered was sleeping on one of the staff's sofa for $30/night or go to one of their new places in Venice.

First of all, sleeping in staff's room should not be a product for sales. Although the whole concept of Podshare/hostel is to delinquish personal privacy for a communal experience, Podestrians are under no obligations to pay to sleep on a couch with staffs, especially if he/she made a reservation a month in advance. Additionally, the couch was less than 4ft long, so I almost had to sleep half-sitted. With barely a space to lay out my personal stuffs, I also had a really difficult time sorting out my belongings.

Second, if I had chosen to go all the way to Venice for an available pod, not only my time and money that I spent to get all the way to downtown LA becomes meaningless (Venice is much closer to the airport) but also my plans and schedules would have had to be rearranged. I don't know if Elvina would have offered a compensation for that but I doubt that she would have.

In short, I knew this was a TOTALLY ridiculous deal, but the silverlining was that in the end, Elvina did not charge me for sleeping in the staff's room and gave me a full refund. Nonetheless, I eventually had to spend extra dollars to get an accomodation around the area. This was a type of situation that I tried so hard to avoid as hotel prices surge as the days get closer to my stay. I had no other options but to take it as it was too late to move to another place.

Elvina's explanation to the situation was that she had booked me under the WRONG DATE. How is this even possible?This might be considered a glitch for Elvina and her staffs, but these things can make a major impact on people's trip: how people feel throughout their trip, their financial situation during the trip, or even drastic changes in their schedules.

If you don't care about where you end up sleeping, I will not stop you from making a reservation at Podshare. However, if you want a guaranteed, cozy bed to sleep in, I suggest that you reconsider your options and book another place.

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