Submitted by "Concerned resident" on 05/06/2008

I also live in this building at 4009 Melrose Ave 90029. The owner is a complete slum. He refuses to send a professional company to take care of the bedbug, roaches and termites. I have complained to him several times. He has even accused me of bringing them to the building. I would not recommed renting at this building. It is very dirty and they never clean until they get complaints. Be very carefull...

Concerned resident

Submitted by "Anonymous" on 04/19/2008

04/19/08 -- 4009 MELROSE AVE.

DO NOT RENT AT 4009 MELROSE AVE.--VENETIAN APARTMENTS! The Owner, Richard Raya, is a Slumlord and has been exploiting low-income families and is now evicting them to raise the rents. The building is extremely infested with bedbugs, cockroaches, termites and also mice. He does the minimal necessary, employing so-called "exterminators"--who are actually his own employees--to set off dollar-store bug bombs and put insecticide powders on the floor, which the health department have said is actually hazardous to your health. His solution to the bedbug problem is to use a steamcleaner (not even a professional one), because he is too cheap to hire a professional exterminator and too cheap to reimburse people for their sofas and couches, which are heavily infested with bedbugs! What little he has done is only because I and several other tenants have repeatedly had to call the health department. One of the families in the building has gone through six mattresses and the children's bodies are covered in bedbug bites, some children as young a 2-yrs old! He clearly has no conscience whatsoever and blames the problem on people being messy, but it doesn't matter how clean you are when the ENTIRE BUILDING IS HEAVILY INFESTED!

When I moved in, the building manager told me the building didn't have any bugs or problems, but I found out very quickly that that wasn't the case (they very obviously knew about it for a long time) and I am forced to get rid of all of my two-year-old furniture (infested with bedbugs) and electronics (cockroaches), because I do not want to take them with me when I move. Although I am at an extreme financial loss, I consider myself lucky, because is not anything close to what the long-term tenants have had to put up with.

There is so much I could tell you about what awful things other tenants have gone through, but I do not want to risk their getting evicted, because many of them have lived here 10+ yrs and cannot afford to move, even though they live in these horrible conditions. Nobody deserves to live like this!