Part 8 - - North Hollywood isn't that bad, is it?

For those of you in other parts of the country, the LA area is quite unique. Whereas in Boston and NYC the "bad sections" are pretty well defined and you have to try to find them, in LA, their randomly scattered here and there like confetti on a windy day. If you're in Sherman Oaks, for instance, you're nestled in a safe, yet overpriced little hamlet and then you drive east towards Burbank, another very cute, safe area, you pass through the glamorously named North Hollywood. NoHo, as the marketing / PR people have named it, was called Lankershim until recently, but that name didn't have the pizzazz they were looking for so they changed it. (Well, as anyone of you that have actually been to Hollywood knows, NoHo's namesake, itself, is FAR from glamorous. In fact, it’s pretty damn seedy. )

Anyway, as you drive through Sherman Oaks the roads are clean, the trees overhang the streets and kids swing on rainbows as the sunlight falls on flowers of a thousand colors. Then, (queue the dramatic music) duh duh daaaah, you cross into North Hollywood. Suddenly, a wind blows, seemingly from the depths of hell and the streets are dirty and cracked and demon dogs and Ravens have ripped the leaves from the trees and only the wood skeletons of the trunks remain. Gangs roam the streets as you swerve to avoid the victims of drive-bys on Magnolia Blvd. Ok, maybe it’s not quite that bad, but there is a palpable change that’s immediate as you cross the border. The roads are dirtier and cracked and there are less pretty trees and the businesses do seem to have a significant amount of graffiti when compared to Sherman Oaks. Also, there’s apparently more crime, too.

Despite this, we actually looked online at a couple of sweet little places, but were thrown off when we drove by and saw that all the neighbors seemed to all have 7 or 9 cars per house. That’s a lot of people for a two bedroom. Our North Hollywood hunt really took a turn for the worse when we actually set up a go-see. The day before we were scheduled to go Renata took a last look at the listing on the Redfin.com site and here is exactly how it read;

“All showings are cancelled due to the property becoming a crime scene. There was a shooting. check for updates later.”

As you can guess, we never “checked for updates later.” Yikes.