BEWARE of apartment 391 at 4917 Indian Wood Road
The long short of it is the landlord is in breach of his contract (supported by our legal counsel) and apartment is poorly insulated from the upstairs apartment. Read on to learn more:
Landlord:
Unfortunately, our landlord refused to return our entire security deposit (there is no damage being original wear and tear) and our prorated rent he owes us despite our month to month lease clearly stating he needs to return prorated rent if we move out early and despite having verbally agreed to the terms of our lease offline twice, totaling several thousand dollars. The best part is when we informed him we were moving out, he asked us to postpone our move out date for a few days, essentially asking for a few extra hundred dollars. We agreed even though we were eager to move out as a favor to him. That was a mistake as he unlawfully chose to keep our entire security deposit and remainder of rent despite are goodwill towards him and now we've had to go through the trouble of pursuing legal action.
Sound and HOA:
We lived at Tara Hill for 21 months. While we were there, we had an acoustic test conducted by Veneklasen Associates due to what we perceived as excessive noise from the upstairs unit. Before authorizing the sound test, we reached out to the HOA and used their recommended acoustic testing company. The sound test showed that the insulation of the flooring in the upstairs unit was below both Culver City housing requirements and Tara Hills HOA requirements.
The insulation is so poor that you could hear conversations from the apartment above, footsteps, etc. Simple actions like the flushing of a toilet and shower were obnoxiously loud. Unfortunately, the family above had two small boys that often ran around the apartment early in the morning, even though I slept with wax ear plugs in every night. After going through the sound test and going back and forth with the HOA as they postponed the hearing for months, the HOA finally decided they didn't want to fine the upstairs apartment for not meeting their own requirements. Disappointing since we'd get notices from the HOA with the threat of a fine for much less consequential issues, like not keeping the screen door of the front door closed. We finally moved out due to the noise.
We had moved to a month by month lease after our year lease had ended as we were reluctant to sign another yearlong lease due to the noise issue. We left the apartment in very good condition, fully cleaned.
Otherwise, the gardens are beautifully maintained and the pools and hot tub are great. I would recommend seeking a top floor unit if you are interested in living here and definitely avoiding unit 391.
Tara Hills Homeowners Association read more