Call it a heady sight.
When Kelly Carney, a Los Angeles renter, recently visited an apartment with her boyfriend, she was shocked to see that when she looked out from the master bedroom, all she could see was the inside of a liquor store. Not across an alley or a street, but literally inside her.
As it turned out, the two-bedroom apartment on Southwest Drive in Hyde Park had a lot more to offer than its $2,700-a-month price tag.
For starters, when the real estate agent provided Carney with the address of the unit, it was listed as a liquor store. But Carney, 42, simply assumed that was where the agent wanted to meet before leading them to the listing. But no, instead he led them through a white door at the back of the property and into the apartment, which was part of the same building.
Once inside, Carney immediately headed to the master bedroom, where the curtains were drawn, and flung them open.
Directly in front of her were shelves filled with coolers and paper plates, and beyond that were the liquor store's refrigerators. Carney made sure to record the sight with her phone.
“I was really angry, but I also laughed. I told my boyfriend, ‘You can’t find apartments anymore,’” she said. “I think the price of that apartment should be $1,000 and no credit. No normal person would live there. No sunlight, nothing. Super depressing. Who would sleep next to that?”
While the window does offer some free entertainment, it was definitely a deal breaker, Carney said.
The real estate agent did not address the intoxicating view of the apartment prior to the viewing.
“I said, ‘This opens at the liquor store,’ and he said, ‘Yeah, that’s been a point of contention.’ He offered to put some tint on it,” Carney said.
The experience exemplified the difficulty of finding a good, affordable place to stay in Los Angeles, Carney said.
Substandard apartments sell for ridiculous prices and just when you think you've struck gold, there's always some kind of gimmick, like a liquor store visit, he said.
“People are asking you to pay three times the rent, have perfect credit and jump through all these hoops to live somewhere that isn’t luxurious,” she said. “It’s depressing.”
