The Calumet House

I lived at 460 W Doran St. for two years. It was my first apartment in Los Angeles. My experience, for the most part, was positive. I loved living in Glendale. I felt extremely safe at all times. I had great neighbors, who I still think about and hope are doing well. The building manager was great. Any maintenance requests were always completed within a day. The apartment was spacious, and the grounds were well taken care of.

Another reviewer said it was a great starter apartment - I agree with that.

There were three cons to this building that led to us moving out:

-The neighbors below me were horribly rude (unit 214). They would bang on their ceiling with a broom constantly, even if we were just walking around the apartment, living our lives normally. They also tried to convince us their was a ghost in our apartment so that we would move out. The unit was empty for two years before we moved in, so I'm sure they got used to having no noise. But I'm sorry, rent a house if you don't want to hear footsteps. Not our problem. They made it INCREDIBLY difficult to live there. This is not a statement against the building, since they can't control that, but I want everyone to be aware that the people in 214 are awful.

-Laundry rooms are only open until 8pm. I could not do laundry on weekdays as I worked until 7pm, which would get annoying.

-The BUGS!!! This is the biggest thing, and the only reason I would not recommend living here. I can't believe how bad the bug situation was, and
the maintenance man even told us that our apartment wasn't as bad as others. I mean, it was a daily occurrence to turn on lights and have twenty roaches scatter. It was disgusting. We tried EVERYTHING to rid the apartment of bugs, and nothing worked. They even come in every six months to do a bug cleaning/check, and it never worked. The bugs came back literally the next day. This was by far the worst part about this building. I've lived in two buildings since, and I haven't seen a single bug in either place, so don't just think it's a "Los Angeles thing," because it doesn't have to be that way.

I don't like living in downtown areas, so living in a mostly residential neighborhood was a must for me. I have a full kitchen, full bathroom, and my unit is away from the street, so not a ton of noise. There are a lot of families with young children and there is typically noise from them, but it's not usually for too long nor overly distracting. The location is great, as it's walkable to the Galleria or Americana or many of the restaurants out on Brand.