- Rent in Westwood
Lived on one of their properties for a while. My particular complex was pretty cute and we had no household pests like roaches. Their maintenance team is just a group of random guys and usually they do a haphazard job (e.g. installing vanity door upside-down, installing a curtain rod in place of a missing sliding glass shower door) but they get simple jobs done (e.g. unclogging drains). Jeff and Linda leave you alone for the most part, so apart from maintenance being kinda sketchy I had a peaceful stay. They actually installed a dishwasher for us after we moved in, since all the other units in our complex had one; that was pretty cool.
But when I moved out! Several things were deducted from the deposit, including a fee for a light that was broken before I moved in, and a $200 cleaning fee. I asked about the light that we didn't break and what incurred the cleaning fee, genuinely out of curiosity, because me and my roommate spent quite some time cleaning when we moved out. Linda ghosted me for a month so I reached out again. She called me and immediately went ballistic. She was rambling and making snarky comments and being extremely rude and aggressive. I was like hey, I understand that you're upset and I get that you deal with a lot of tenants, and she cut me off and said no, I'm not upset. I said great, well we just wanted some clarification-- and she cuts me off and goes "oh, I'll give you clarification!" and rambled some more. Still have no idea what made her act like that.
What I gathered is that things like painting cost a lot and she actually undercharged us because she thought we were good tenants, and I guess she felt betrayed that I asked her about the deposit? Still kind of odd since the paint was obviously cheap and peeled really easily, and she said the $200 is just for the move-out/move-in cleaning she does for all tenants but our place was pretty dirty when we first moved in. I didn't care enough so I just took the deducted deposit return.
TLDR: OK for the most part, sketchy maintenance but had a peaceful stay over a long time. Landlady Linda has a nasty personality, will not hesitate to be rude and aggressive. Be prepared to lose some of your deposit, regardless of how much you clean, and do not ask her for clarification if you don't enjoy hostility.
- Moo Housing
Don't move in before their turnover period (early-mid September). They just won't do the move-in cleaning for you otherwise. I waited weeks and weeks before I cleaned mold and poop and cockroach eggs myself. Also get everything in writing, I mean EVERYTHING. They don't keep verbal promises. Maintenance requests also take 3-5 weeks to get taken care of. The only benefit is that they offer by-the-room leasing (they lease units from several different properties across UCLA and USC, then sublease rooms to individual students), so you don't have to worry about finding roommates yourself if people have different graduation/move-out times. The overhead they take seems to be pretty big though.
TLDR: Don't move in before September. Maintenance requests take a while. Flexibility from by-the-room leasing but pretty large overhead.
Hope this helps. Apartment hunting sucks, especially for Westwood. Good luck out there!
