Call it an intoxicating sight.
When LA renter Kelly Carney recently visited an apartment with her boyfriend, she was shocked to see that when she looked out of her bedroom, all she could see was the inside of a liquor store. Not across an alley or street into a liquor store, but literally right inside it.
As it turns out, there was more to the two-bedroom apartment on Southwest Drive in Hyde Park than the $2,700-a-month price tag that made it exciting.
At first, when the broker gave Carney the address of the unit, it appeared as a liquor store. But Carney, 42, just assumed that was where the broker wanted to meet before leading them to the listing. But no, instead he took them through a white gate at the back of the property and into the flat which was part of the same building.
Inside, Carney immediately went to the bedroom where the curtains had been drawn too close and flung them open.
Directly in front of her were shelves stacked with coolers and paper plates, and beyond that were the liquor store refrigerators. Carney made sure to record the view on his phone.
“I was so angry but also laughing. I told my boyfriend, ‘You can’t find apartments anymore,'” she said. “I think the price for 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?”
Although the window offers free entertainment of sorts, it was definitely a deal-breaker, Carney said.
The agent did not address the issue of the apartment’s intoxicating view before the visit.
“I said, ‘This is opening at the liquor store,’ and he said, ‘Yeah, it’s been a bone of contention.’ He offered to put a shade on it, Carney said.
The experience exemplified the difficulty of finding a good, affordable location in Los Angeles, Carney said.
Subpar apartments go for ridiculous prices and when you think you’ve struck gold, there’s some kind of catch, like a liquor store, she said.
“People ask you to rent three times, have perfect credit and jump through all these hoops to live somewhere that’s not luxury,” she said. “It’s depressing.”