Walnut Square Apartments

The apartments here are dark and dreary. The location; however, is lovely as well as quiet while being nestled in the Simi hills. Built circa 1979 by the current landlord and management company, JBR Development, located in Beverly Hills, CA. The family legacy rules the roost there. They have fully depreciated the property and no capital improvements have been made since original construction. Lower level living areas are designed like railroad flats; narrow and straight to the back garages where kitchens and small dining areas are also located. There are no windows in most rears, unless you opt for a one bedroom corner unit where natural light enters the kitchen. Other than that, the units are without kitchen and dining area windows for gaining natural light. Newest on site property manager, along with their veteran maintenance crew are extremely responsive, efficient and professional. Rent is month to month enabling Landlord to raise according to management company’s dictums. Noise levels by adjacent neighbors can be troublesome with thin walls especially if they’re incorporating any home based entertainment systems for enjoyment. This is NOT the place to bring your big screen T.V.‘s. Living next to families with young children running up and downstairs can also be disruptive. We suffered from an ongoing water problem that created a small lake in front of a unit on Sheri Drive, and although the former property manager refused to do anything to correct it, we got in touch with City officials at the Dept. of Water so that they ultimately worked in partnership with the owners to try and fix it. After four years, this problem still exists to the best of our knowledge. Importantly, notwithstanding the management company fully depreciating their property for 30 years, and not spending on bringing it up to 21^st Century modeling standards with capital improvements, they have somehow designed a scheme to charge individual tenants with their own «depreciation schedule» when vacating their property as a chargeback against security, i.e., carpets, painting, etc. including normal wear and tear. This seems to be a profit center for them all by itself. This is in spite of the fact that their rents are today’s market prices – inflated – at the same time they benefit from PROP 13, where their own property taxes are mostly «fixed» since they built these would be condominiums ultimately turned into apartments circa 1979. By their own design, these apartments are best suited for satisfying tenants with short term needs.