Valley Motel

If you’re looking for 5-​star accommodations on San Fernando Road, you’re not from around here, but among the myriad of cheap motels on the Northern-​most edge of the San Fernando Valley, this one is one of the WORST!
Let me begin by clarifying that I am not a prostitute and that I did not rent the room to conduct any illegal activities. I was displaced from the guest house I was renting when the property owner lost the place to foreclosure, and needed a cheap place to stay while I searched for a new residence.
The manager is extremely rude, more so to women than men. I presume that’s because his respect for women has been eroded away by the local prostitute population which comprises a large portion of his clientele (along with a little over a half-​dozen sex offenders, mostly child molesters, who are registered with the motel as their residence:
(3 on page 1, 1 on page 2, 1 on page 3, 2 on page 4, and 1 on page 5: 8 total, quite a large number considering there are only 25 rooms as the motel). For certain, it is NOT a family motel, and I would strongly discourage anyone with children from ever staying there.
I had to rent a car while I was staying at the Valley Motel because there is only one restaurant and no convenience stores or markets within walking distance, so if I wanted to eat, I had to drive, so it actually cost me more to stay at the Valley Motel than it would have for me to have stayed somewhere more expensive in a more convenient location. Periodically I would have to turn in one vehicle and take another to continue to get a good rate. Every time I switched cars, the manager insisted that I left him come inside the room to search for unauthorized guests because there was a strange car parked in front of my room, and he would not take my word that it was a new rental car, even when I showed him my rental contract. I found it to be an invasion of my privacy for him to come inside my room anytime he pleased, with no warning whatsoever.
There are telephones in the rooms, but they don’t make outgoing calls at all. I believe they’re only their for the manager to call & remind you of the 10am check-​out time (30min-​an hour earlier than any other motel around here) or to DEMAND $ 10 per person for any visitor you may have (again, I presume, a result of all the prostitution taking place here. I mean, he’s gotta get his cut, right?)
Not once during the entire month I stayed at the Valley Motel did the manager have housekeeping clean my room, which was pretty dirty when I got there. I opened up the air conditioner, to try to figure out why it was barely blowing, and the mystery was solved: The filter utterly disgusting. No air could have possibly blown through it! Clearly, it had not been changed in many years.
In addition to having an extremely rude, nosey manager, & the rooms not being very clean, the motel is located directly across the street from the control tower at Whiteman Airport, and while the airport is not a very busy one, the noise can be an issue at times.
My biggest problem with this motel, however, was that the sign says «Free Wi-​Fi» but getting a username and password (which frequently expire) from the manager is no mean task. If your username & password expires at night, you won’t be able to get online again till after 10am checkout the next day. And even when you CAN get online, the networks (there are two) are UNBELIEVABLY slow.
The ONLY thing the Valley Motel had going for it was its inexpensive rates ($ 225/​week), but if I add to that the $ 135/​week I had to spend on a rental car so that I could eat during that month, I feel kind of dumb for having stayed there. For $ 360/​week, I could have stayed in a much better, cleaner place with a manager who wasn’t verbally abusive to his paying customers, with GENUINELY free uninterrupted wi-​fi. I won’t make that mistake again, and I hope no one else makes that mistake at all. What APPEARS to be the least expensive isn’t necessarily the least expensive when you factor in all the extra expenses you have to incur.