Apartment Review for Villa Venetia - Costa Mesa, CA

Well, lets see...We unfortunately signed an 8 month lease which thank god ended in Sept. Don't let the grounds of this apartment fool you. It is full of rats, cockroaches and spiders. The first month wasn't bad until I found rat poop in the oven. We placed a complaint with management and someone came out pretty quickly. When they pulled the stove out we found a rat hole where the rats were coming in from, and hoarding all our dog's food. So instead of filling in the hole they covered the hole with duct tape. My boyfriend suggested that they fill in the hole, but the maintenance guy said that "it is very strong tape and they cannot get through." He proceeded to place a rat trap in the oven where 1 week later we caught the rat. Needless to say they chewed through the tape and we ended up with more rat poop in the oven, under the chair and along the walls. So when the maintenance came out again, they again covered the rat hole with duct tape. To make a long story short, we ended up catching 8 rats, maintenance ended up coming out 4 times and the exterminator twice. (which by the way maintenance enters with out permission even when you tell them not to and when you come home you find little notes laying around saying they were there.) The final straw came when we were sitting on the couch and all of a sudden a rat jumped out of the fireplace and ran INTO our leather couch. My boyfriend tried to coax the rat out and ended up ripping a hole in the couch trying to get the damn thing out. We went out that night and bought rat traps from the grocery store. When we started to move our furniture we found piles of rat poop and rat pee all over the furniture, carpet, wires, tables and anywhere you can imagine. ( I have downloaded pictures) When we asked the management what they were going to do they told us that we were completely 100% responsible for cleaning the place before we leave and that it is completely normal to have a rat problem if you have dogs. I have always had dogs and have never had a rat problem. We called the housing authority and they told us that it is not normal and that they are responsible for the rodents. In fact when I told them what we found and the condition of the place, they were disgusted by it. We also filed a compliant with the city and they also told us that they showed neglect by not filling in the rat hole, and that they were responsible for the rats. We ended up having to throw our couch away b/c when it was moved piles of rat poop came falling out, apparently they were living in it. When I asked the neighbors if they have rat problems they said that they have seen them around the steps leading to the apartments. The reason why we refused to vacuum was b/c we didn't want the poop getting stuck in the vacuum. Parking is also terrible, every night they tow cars, but even than my boyfriend who was a paying tenant and supposed to have a parking spot hardly ever got one. He had to park outside the complex numerous times and walk in. If you do decide to have visitors... good luck, you better tell them to bring comfortable walking shoes. We met some tenants who live in the other buildings and they seem to have the cockroach problem. I have seen them crawling around the buildings as well. The first month we moved in we also received a notice warning us that there was an armed robbery in the complex. So if you don't mind living with rats, cockroaches, armed robberies, no parking, maintenance entering with out permission to fix stupid things, paying high rent, and not getting any part of your deposit back, (in fact getting stuck with a bill b/c you refuse to clean rat poop/pee) than this is the place for you.