How 5 Upgrades Took a Turn for the Worse

This is your official guide to the lowdown on upgrades. We have them all, right here in River City Silver Lake. Taylor Equities is the owner of  2965 Waverly Drive, and I will be your host.

Splitting a 1BR, 1BA into a 2BR, 1BA, No Closet

Steven Taylor has outdone himself! Prepare to enter a maze more frightening than Knott’s Scary Farm.

We all want extra room(s), of course. Please! But Taylor Equities (formerly Ness Properties) didn’t add more footage, they subtracted more living space.

All of these apartments are 2 story, similar to a condo, but smaller. The first floor is one long open room with no walls, and a kitchen at one end. The second floor is a large bedroom, a walk-in closet, and a bathroom. That is our only closet, seriously.

Taylor has turned the closet into a 2nd “bedroom” in some units (A desk and chair is a more likely fit.) That means, no closet for you. Live life like the Victorians!

The blueprint doesn’t show a built-in closet, so  maybe they’ll add a standing modular IKEA-type closet. Or perhaps instead of bringing your own refrigerator, you’ll have to bring a wardrobe.

Squeezing a washer/dryer into your living space

I wrote about this before. There are mixed feelings among owners and landlords about any advantage in adding these to

rental properties : renters like the idea, in theory, but the downside is apparent. In any case, major water and gas appliances are usually arranged for at the time the unit was built, not an afterthought. Like our apartments, which have long flights of stairs. Which have no hookups. Or pipes. Or room.

Note the “floorplan” Taylor delivered to us. There are 2 boxes (of varying size), with an X on them –they are the washer/dryers combo, which might go either place, eeny meeny miny mo. . It’s a Sophie’s Choice where they will split open the walls! And this was in April, only a few days before they started major construction (6 months so far!), not having a clue. (In some units, they cut open both walls, just to experiment.)

This makes no sense at all, since we already have a very nice separate laundry room, with 3 washers and dryers, but apparently Stephen Taylor thinks 72 washers and dryers is better for the planet.  Who adds more heat, moisture, noise, vibrations to older buildings? Landlords who don’t live there.

Elephant Windows

Of course, with a blog called Killer Views, you knew we already have picture windows. They’re great. But now he wants to double their size. Wall windows.

Do you like looking out of green, wavy glass? With white stripes bisecting it? You’re in luck! Piping hot, right here on Waverly! And by hot, we mean that, literally: the new windows

only open a couple of feet – about 30% less fresh air or breeze than the windows we have now. And the opening is towards the ceiling, so no cool breeze for you, unless you’re 6′ tall, and mostly stand.

12 apartments face south, so this humongous window (55% more glass) will add 55% more heat. And it faces the street — peep show, anyone?

Gentrified Gate?

We have been embraced by the LA Tenants Union, who often come by for meetings, and it was one of the organizers who called our new fence a “gentrifence.”

(Personally, I don’t think gentrification is the problem for affordable housing, as much as the media likes using that big word. Starbucks is welcome everywhere, and not a harbinger of horrific rents. Unscrupulous developers and landlords are bad, however. Let’s separate the tares from the wheat.)

I’m not up on trending models of fences, but I think adding natural wood can be a great design move for certain projects.

That’s on paper. This is real life. Our fence  faces west,  we’re high on the hill, and we get a blasting wind about 3:15 every afternoon. Especially in colder months. the wind picks up and slams into us. You can see the fence snake like a whip – it’s awesome. And then it bangs shut or stalls.

For tenants, a solid wall of wood means you can’t see a thing on the street. Cars coming in? Uber waiting for you? Delivery guy? No one knows, and it’s very annoying. In fact, it has spurred me to add a new Category here: Form vs Function.

Spycams for you and me

We’ve been asking management for a security camera for years, after breakins, stolen items, even a very expensive car stolen. Because we’re good boys and girls, LAPD  gave us a big metal sign saying we’re part of Neighborhood Watch, but that’s all we had

Taylor Equities sent us a notice this summer saying workers would be coming in the complex for a few days to install security cameras. That should have been a clue, several days. They weren’t here to install a couple of security cameras, they were here to hook up 18 of them – one for every 2 tenants. And none of them are outside the building, or face the street, or the side entrances. They all watch us, the tenants. Going in or out of our apartment, getting in the car, spying on our visitors, in our windows, etc. All recorded.

One of the “security” camera workers said, “Taylor does this in all his buildings. He’s worried tenants will wreck the place, or steal from him, or leave out garbage.”

Hahahaha! He took away our recycle cans and trash bins for 18 days, so, great trap there. And I didn’t hear anything in this description about security for us. There are so few

of us left, the building looks deserted, and has already attracted some vagrants,  had some breakins, and the cameras were useless, anyway.

None of these downgrades are meant to discourage improvements and upgrades, of course. They can be lovely. But it might discourage you if you were hoping for them at this particular address.