Extended Stay America Suites Los Angeles Valencia

The natural greenery around the hotel is beautiful and well kept, and there’s lots of parking. Inside, the fridge, microwave, electric hot plates, stove hood, and air conditioner all worked well. The water pressure is strong, the elevator was always quick, and I never saw bugs. Shopping, restaurants, and grocery stores are all within 2 miles. Dog poop bags were always available at reception and in several outdoor spots. The reception staff, especially the white girls who worked there, made me feel welcome and valued. The white boy receptionists were great too. The cleaning ladies were polite, quiet in the morning, and kept to themselves, which I appreciated. The walls are thin, and the hallways smell like someone has been cooking. The nightly price is expensive and pretty ridiculous if you won’t use the kitchen amenities, though everything in the hotel worked well and the staff did a great job.

I had two rooms for my family, and with so little time I couldn’t find another place. The beds were clean, but the rooms and bathrooms weren’t. It looked like nobody had vacuumed in ages. The front office employee was kind and clearly embarrassed. Apparently she was handling the whole place alone, including the laundry, because neither room had pillowcases or blankets, and one was missing all toilet paper. The kitchenettes had no supplies at all. There was trash and debris all over the parking lot, including lots of dryer lint, and standing water in an irrigation control box that had been partly dug up. I wondered who could own a business in this condition, looked into it, and found that Blackrock and private equity own it. That made the place feel like it was run by a slum lord. We will never stay here again.

My stay at the Extended Stay America Suites was clean and comfortable, just what I needed. The staff made it especially good. Shayna and Jonathan were warm, welcoming, and genuinely helpful throughout. From greeting me to responding quickly when I needed something, they made the place feel safe and friendly, and like guests were looked after. It’s rare to find people who bring that kind of energy and care.

The staff are friendly and helpful, and I’ve seen a real shift for the better under Tykeem, the new General Manager. He’s working to bring the place up to standard, and I’ve noticed staff attitudes improve too. Emerson handled a room that wasn’t clean enough when I first stayed with patience and sorted it out quickly. Sarah, the team lead, knows her stuff and is helpful. Shayna is kind and makes great coffee, Nethal is fun to talk to and makes me feel safe coming in late, and Hugo is always sweet and greets me when we pass. Still, the place has a lot of problems. Things sometimes work at first and then stop, and issues aren’t always fixed after staff say they’ll look into them. My second room smelled strongly of curry in the walls and stove fan filter. They gave me febreeze and fabuloso, but it took almost 3 weeks for the smell to fade, and it still lingered a little. The microwave was filthy. My phone stopped working after 2 nights; they replaced the phone and cord, but the wall plug was the problem, and no one from the phone company came to fix it. The TV got blurry and choppy at night, presumably when lots of people were using Direct TV, so I stopped watching. There was a roach infestation for a while because of a long term guest, though they do have an exterminator on deck. I also found spiders. I caught a pregnant one in a cup with a lid and took her outside so she could keep eating bugs and wouldn’t have her babies in my room. This isn’t the tale of Charlotte's Web. After I caught another small spider, I saw it was a brown recluse. Yikes! I showed it to Tykeem, and he said he’d contact his supervisors about accommodating me for the bugs and reducing my rate to the $80 per night I’d paid the week before, instead of the $123 it had risen to. Later he said he was still waiting for an email and not to worry. The next morning there was a letter under my door saying my payment was past due. At the desk, Tykeem said it was a template letter and they’d given me the wrong one. When I asked about the email again, he still had no response and said he could only comp 1 day, leaving me at $123 per night. I left for another hotel. This could have been avoided if my extension had been done before checkout when I first asked, instead of triggering a whole new week at “summer rates.” I felt like he was trying to take advantage of me financially to increase the hotel’s profits. I know it’s a business, but letting my booking run out so the higher rates would kick in felt shady. Being good natured doesn’t make me a doormat or an idiot. For $123 a night, you can find another hotel without stained towels and sheets and with better amenities.