If you like unprofessional staff, shoddy upkeeping and cleaning, sleeping in LA without air conditioning or heat (recent nights it could be 85°F / 30°C at 3:00AM even if it's 60°F / 15°C outside), Wi-Fi that is slow as molasses and has spotty coverage, and did I say unprofessional staff? Then you've come to the right place!
Long story short of why I'm there: I was pending a career change, but if I knew that their bad planning was going to make me stay here 2 months instead of a week as planned, I would've kept my apartment's lease and wouldn't have even known this squalid, decrepit dump even existed.
Are you sure I didn't mention unprofessional staff? The manager likes to pretend he's friendly by chatting you up, singing and joking, but has no true management experience except for power-tripping and barking an order, and hides in his bedroom if any real problems come up.
Carlos (chubby Latino, usually wears a Mayan Calendar pendant, usually works 3rd shift) is new and tends to power trip while everyone else is very friendly and willing to help... Glad that the worst people have been fired though.
For starters, don't expect this place to even remotely resemble being completely clean. The work is done by volunteers who only do a thorough clean if the boss is watching... The bathroom is only scrubbed once a day, but constantly dirty and moldy other times (which is only scrubbed with Pine-Sol and a broom in the morning; no anti-mold solution so of course it grows back 2 hours later), and toilet paper is almost never checked, so check paper before usage. The only room cleaning is just changing sheets of whoever checked out and the trash (or shall I say a plastic bag hanging from the door since they're too cheap to even buy trash bins), hardly anything else. They installed hardwood floors in all the rooms with 3rd-rate contractors (room 5 doesn't even close properly), but not the hallway; there is tons of embedded dirt and it's only spot-cleaned by a Shopvac designed for cleaning a carpenter's workspace, not a carpet.
As an IT Admin, I brought 2 public-use computers back from near-death, remapped their mess of a Wi-Fi situation and boosted the speed and range of it, but 1. The internet is slow to begin with and 2. I asked management plenty of times to install another range extender, but he kept procrastinating on it.
If you like to have activities, expect most of them to be canceled or only partially coordinated. The comedy show hires unfunny hacks, club crawls are poorly coordinated (last one I went to the club promoter couldn't even get us in), and for the pizza, beer and movie night, it's Coors Light (the worst excuse for beer; the last time I bought Heineken for everyone I got chewed out and it became the manager's "private reserve"), cheapo 7-Eleven pizza, and no movie.
Last but not least, if you drive, the parking rates are insane (closest yet cheapest parking is $13 / 24hrs with hourly breakdown; the one right out back is $20 per day with no hourly rate).
The only reason I've stayed here was because I saved boatloads of money volunteering for free stay and day-to-day parking is only $400 a month, which is even much cheaper than being roommates. Also, this place discriminates by origin and the manager told me that "the owner doesn't want Americans here", so keep in mind that I am reporting this company to the government for discrimination.
So, after seeing how shady this ripoff of a hostel is, please do yourself a favor and avoid this place at all costs; if I have steered one person away from this squalor, I am proud to have enacted my civil duty, goodwill for the community and done my job.
Hollywood International Hostel Reviews
If you like unprofessional staff, shoddy upkeeping and cleaning, sleeping in LA without air conditioning or heat (recent nights it could be 85°F / 30°C at 3:00AM even if it's 60°F / 15°C outside), Wi-Fi that is slow as molasses and has spotty coverage, and did I say unprofessional staff? Then you've come to the right place!
Long story short of why I'm there: I was pending a career change, but if I knew that their bad planning was going to make me stay here 2 months instead of a week as planned, I would've kept my apartment's lease and wouldn't have even known this squalid, decrepit dump even existed.
Are you sure I didn't mention unprofessional staff? The manager likes to pretend he's friendly by chatting you up, singing and joking, but has no true management experience except for power-tripping and barking an order, and hides in his bedroom if any real problems come up.
Carlos (chubby Latino, usually wears a Mayan Calendar pendant, usually works 3rd shift) is new and tends to power trip while everyone else is very friendly and willing to help... Glad that the worst people have been fired though.
For starters, don't expect this place to even remotely resemble being completely clean. The work is done by volunteers who only do a thorough clean if the boss is watching... The bathroom is only scrubbed once a day, but constantly dirty and moldy other times (which is only scrubbed with Pine-Sol and a broom in the morning; no anti-mold solution so of course it grows back 2 hours later), and toilet paper is almost never checked, so check paper before usage. The only room cleaning is just changing sheets of whoever checked out and the trash (or shall I say a plastic bag hanging from the door since they're too cheap to even buy trash bins), hardly anything else. They installed hardwood floors in all the rooms with 3rd-rate contractors (room 5 doesn't even close properly), but not the hallway; there is tons of embedded dirt and it's only spot-cleaned by a Shopvac designed for cleaning a carpenter's workspace, not a carpet.
As an IT Admin, I brought 2 public-use computers back from near-death, remapped their mess of a Wi-Fi situation and boosted the speed and range of it, but 1. The internet is slow to begin with and 2. I asked management plenty of times to install another range extender, but he kept procrastinating on it.
If you like to have activities, expect most of them to be canceled or only partially coordinated. The comedy show hires unfunny hacks, club crawls are poorly coordinated (last one I went to the club promoter couldn't even get us in), and for the pizza, beer and movie night, it's Coors Light (the worst excuse for beer; the last time I bought Heineken for everyone I got chewed out and it became the manager's "private reserve"), cheapo 7-Eleven pizza, and no movie.
Last but not least, if you drive, the parking rates are insane (closest yet cheapest parking is $13 / 24hrs with hourly breakdown; the one right out back is $20 per day with no hourly rate).
The only reason I've stayed here was because I saved boatloads of money volunteering for free stay and day-to-day parking is only $400 a month, which is even much cheaper than being roommates. Also, this place discriminates by origin and the manager told me that "the owner doesn't want Americans here", so keep in mind that I am reporting this company to the government for discrimination.
So, after seeing how shady this ripoff of a hostel is, please do yourself a favor and avoid this place at all costs; if I have steered one person away from this squalor, I am proud to have enacted my civil duty, goodwill for the community and done my job.