Call it an intoxicating view.
When L.A. renter Kelly Carney toured a recent apartment with her boyfriend, she was shocked to see that when she looked out of the master bedroom, all she could see was the inside of a liquor store. Not across an alley or street and into a liquor store, but literally directly inside it.
As it turned 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 intriguing.
For starters, when the realtor provided Carney the unit address, it showed up as a liquor store. But Carney, 42, just assumed that’s where the realtor 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 apartment, which was a part of the same building.
Inside, Carney headed immediately to the master bedroom where the curtains had been drawn closed and flung them open.
Directly in front of her stood shelves stacked with coolers and paper plates, and beyond that were the liquor store refrigerators. Carney made sure to record the view on her phone.
“I was so mad but also laughing. I told my boyfriend, ‘You are not allowed to find apartments anymore,’” she said. “I think the price for that apartment should be $1000 and no credit. Nobody normal would live there. No sunlight, nothing. Super depressing. Who would sleep next to that?”
Though the window offers free entertainment of sorts, it was definitely a deal-breaker, Carney said.
The realtor did not broach the subject of the apartment’s intoxicating view before the visit.
“I said, ‘This opens on the liquor store’ and he was like, ‘Yeah, that’s been a point of contention.’ He offered to put a tint on it,” Carney said.
The experience exemplified the difficulty of finding a good, affordable place in Los Angeles, Carney said.
Subpar apartments go for ridiculous prices and when you think you’ve struck gold, there’s some sort of catch, like a liquor store view, she said.
“People are asking you to make three times rent, have perfect credit and jump through all these hoops to live somewhere that is not luxury,” she said. “It’s depressing.”