Tenant Reviews for 501 S NEW HAMPSHIRE AVE

Perhaps things changed a lot since the negative reviews posted, but I've been living here since September 2007 and have had a great experience. The concerns about the noisy and sometimes questionable neighborhood are valid, but Hampshire Place has offered a nice escape admist all the chaos. I have an inside facing apartment so it's really peaceful. Once in awhile there will be kids playing in the pool or people BBQ'ing in the courtyard and are loud, but it's usually within daytime hours. The security guard here is pretty strict about kicking people out of those areas at 10 pm. The staff at the rental office are awesome - they remember me by name and fixed things right away. When I first moved in, I had plumbing issues but they were fixed right away (day or the next day). Elevators, hallways and other common areas like the fitness center are well maintained and clean. My only real gripe about the place is that the elevators are really slow and have broken down a few times. Things I particularly like is the landscaping, the fitness center, ability to access and pay your rent online and the interiors are pretty new. If I ever move away it would be because I got tired of the neighborhood (but it's nice to have a Metro station, Walgreen's, PinkBerry, restaurants and a liquor store in walking distance!)

Sure, the neighborhood is noisy and has homeless people, but come on - this is LA. Just use some common sense. I can't believe all these bad reviews, because aside from a few drawbacks, this is the best apartment I've ever lived in. I've been here 2 years and really like it. PROS - Friendly, available, HELPFUL staff in both the office (open every day) and maintenance. After living in places where I practically had to hunt down the manager with a bloodhound and drag them back by the hair to get them to do anything, this is a blessing. - Fast maintenance response. My broken microwave door and fire alarm were fixed within a day. My boyfriend got a ceiling leak in the middle of the night (guy above him let his tub overflow), and when he called maintenance, someone came right away to take care of it. This prompt response would have been unheard of in my previous apartments. - Clean, comfortable, pretty apartment. I have a nice view, lots of space, lots of natural light, and perfectly satisfactory kitchen appliances. The kitchen and bathrooms have a faux-hardwood flooring that looks nice and is easy to clean. There's also plenty of grounded electrical outlets in each room and great water pressure. - Pleasant, very well-cared-for grounds. From the outside the building isn't much to look at, but then you get inside and see these bright, cheery courtyard, pool, and BBQ areas. The open-air walkways are very nice. I feel safe coming in here because there are families around (last year anyway, haven't seen them lately), and I HAVE run into security guards roaming the grounds when I've come home at various hours of the night. - Laundry. They have 3 laundry rooms on each floor, so I rarely have to wait. One dryer has been broken (fixed in a couple weeks) and one washer freaked out on the hot setting (also fixed, and in the meantime I just used that one for cold and the one next to it for hot). - Decent public transport (in LA?!!). I have a car but will occasionally walk 5 min. to the Wilshire/Vermont station to take the subway to Hollywood or downtown. Also the Rapid buses are very convenient to go up Vermont or down Wilshire. Walking distance to Vons/Ralphs/Walgreens and lots of boba, coffee, and Korean BBQ places. CONS - Noise. Yes, there are bars around with drunks stumbling home and yelling at each other, helicopters, construction, REALLY annoying car alarms etc. but that's the neighborhood's fault, not the apartment complex itself. - Kitchen/bathroom counter material. I don't know what it is, but it's not very good quality. It stains easily and if you leave something with a paper label on it on a hot day, the label becomes part of the counter... very sci-fi. - Tandem parking. Yes, it's a pain in the butt sometimes, but coming from street parking it's still a huge improvement for me. - Price. It's a little steep and is going up every year. If you want to go month-to-month after your lease is up, it's especially pricey. - Balcony has no overhang, so it gets pretty dirty and I don't get to use it much. Overall, I have really felt at home in this place. It 's not perfect, but for this price range, in this neighborhood, it's about the best you'll find.

I am not at all impressed with living in this apartment building. It is a noisy and unsafe neighborhood. There is a government parking garage across the street that starts banging away and making all sorts of noise early in the morning and the nights are filled with noisy neighbors, sirens, car alarms, helicopters flying over-head, honking. Just last night a large black man was yelling and carrying on outside the building and honking his car horn incessantly and then proceeded to throw small rocks at the building which were hitting my sliding glass door and bedroom window. Needless to say I called 911 and reported the issue. The poor manintenance guys are working hard to keep the apartments in working order, I'll give them credit for that...our apartment has had numerous problems - broken toilet on the first day in the apartment, water seeping into the bedroom and living room through cracks in the stucco of the building, water under the sink in the bathroom which ruined some of my things, water leaking around the faucet of the bathroom sink, shower-head pulling away from the wall, dishwasher in kitchen spitting out water and flooding the kitchen, gum on the carpet when we moved in, no silverware container in the dishwasher, the pans in the stove were the wrong size causing a pot or pan placed on the stove to sit at a 45 degree angle...hmm...is that everything. I'm sure I missed something! Oh & we have 2 parking spots, but they are tandem (one person parked directly behind the other) which is a major pain in the butt! Forgot one thing...the hot tub that they show you when you are getting the our of the building is a cold tub...doesn't heat up or work! In addition, one of the washers in the laundry room only uses hot water...you can't chose cold wash...made my clothes very wrinkled and I don't dry most of my clothing...usually hang to dry! The tenants leave their garbage sitting around in front of the garbage shute quite regularly and it smells. Then, I've also had problems with getting packages delivered and having UPS drop them off and they get stolen. Overall, my best recommendation is to stay away from this apartment building! For the price you pay and what you get...not worth it! I feel bad for the maintenance guys and leasing office staff because they are all nice people, but have a noisy, unsafe neighborhood to rent in and the building is very old and obviously there are water problems...almost every issue we've had is water-related!

The apartment I had here was very cozy & spacious, but living here was awful. My apartment that I rented faced S Berendo. There were homeless people constantly hanging around the exits, yelling loudly at all hours of the night, leaving piles of human feces & puddles of urine by the exit doors, & you could even see them doing drugs. They would also leave needles & other drug paraphernalia around. Don't expect the police to do anything & also don't expect grounds security to do anything about it. Your complaints will go completely ignored. The water was shut off constantly w/and w/out notice. The pool, which was conveniently located above the parking garage, leaked into the garage & onto my car. The chemicals from it ruined the paint on my car & i had to file a claim w/the company that took too long to resolve. I found bullets (yes, gun bullets) in the elevator once. The laundry rooms had the wrong pipes hooked up to the washer, so when you thought you were washing your clothes in cold water, it ended up being extremely hot. I lost over $100 in clothes because of this & was compensated only $10. It took maintenance for the washing machines 3 times to fix this. 2 times they came in saying it was fixed when nothing was done. Also, one day the tubes supplying the water to the washers became disconnected & the whole washing area was flooded. Grounds maintenance wouldn't even come to clean it up & make sure everything was safe, they just advised to call the people in charge of the washing machines. The mail boxes for the Berendo addresses were constantly broken into. The complex advised it was not their problem and the post office needed to fix it. They advised that I call the post office, not them. There was a problem with the wiring to the building fire alarm, that would go off on random multiple times during the week and at all hours. When it first happened, they blamed someone for pulling the alarm, they ran out of excuses after it happening 5 and more times, in which it became a, "We're working on fixing it." This went on for months. They supposedly have their own security people watching over the building after hours. This was a joke. They do not come to the building unless called. Multiple complaints about noisy neighbors did nothing. Once a smoke detector was going off all night in someone's apartment. Because there was no smoke, it took me a while to figure out where the alarm sound was coming from. Concerned, security never showed up after 3 hours of calling them. When calling them for the 5th time, I was advised they couldn't get a hold of anyone with keys to get into the apartment. Annoyed & concerned, the police were called. They showed up (which is rare in that area) after 30 minutes, got right into the place, found out the harsh smells from painting the place were making the alarm go off. Found out because of that, that when smelling something all week in my apartment like turpentine & making me sick, that's what it was from. People would wait outside the garage, go in when someone else would open the gates & park illegally. If someone was in your assigned spot, good luck getting the vehicle towed. It won't happen.

From the brochure and the brief tour, Hampshire Place seemed nice enough, maybe even a little better. But we were wrong! Upon moving in, we noticed how dirty and smelly the place really is. As time went on, we noticed how loud and unruly some of the tenants can be. The general upkeep is decent, with the maintainence staff working constantly to clean the place and fix various things, seemingly to no avil since the tenants let their children run around unsupervised breaking things. The pool area is nice enough, and on really nice days, is filled with families BBQ-ing, people swimming in the pool, and sun bathers laying about. That's probably the only good thing. Hampshire Place isn't all that it's cracked up to be, and will come in just under one's expectations. We don't plan on renewing our lease.