Sunrise of Woodland Hills

I was able to visit Sunrise of Woodland Hills, and this was my second choice. I like the facility itself except that it didn’t have enough outdoor space for sitting outside. The space was very small. It was nice, but if you end up in the Alzheimer's unit, it was too depressing.

The staff at Sunrise of Woodland Hills was really friendly and really helpful. They gave me the best rate that they could. I was really happy with everything, but my dad wasn't ready for this. They showed me everywhere. They showed me a room that was smaller, but I asked for a bigger room, and they agreed to give me the same rate for the bigger room, so they were very helpful. The dining room was set up very nicely. At the time I was there, they were playing dominos. One time, they were playing music, and they were telling me about other activities.

My mother is in Sunrise and we choose it because of the quality of service. We also like the environment. Everything is good. We like the staff. They help her in bathing, but you have to pay for that. They also help her with the medication. She’s in a studio with a small kitchenette, a refrigerator and a sink. It is not spacious, but it is a good size. The food is fine. However, maybe they can improve on the variety of food on the menu. They have activities there. They have religious services and outings.

The people at Sunrise Woodland Hills were very friendly and very accommodating. They showed us around the entire facility. They have a much larger reminiscence or memory unit. But it's also a lot more expensive than other facilities. They didn't have a single bedroom that they could share with us at the time. The only thing that we were able to look at was a shared room, and we didn't want that for my mom. We wanted her to have her own room. So that was another reason why we went with another facility. But they were very nice, and they answered all of our questions. They have animals on-site that live there and are there for the residents, which is really nice.

Sunrise of Woodland Hills is really nice. It is very clean and very well kept. I have only been there once, and so far everybody seems to be nice. The dining room was very nice and clean; I was really surprised. I think one reason why my parents chose it for my uncle was because it was extremely clean. The other reason is cost. It really is not expensive for what you get.

We applied for my father at Sunrise. It had lots of activities. It was very sunny and cheery. I liked the kitchen concept, the service, and the fact that the menu changed every day. It was a larger facility. They had a much nicer outside space where they had porches in the front, and they had an outside patio at the back. The staff was very helpful. The second time I visited them, I was with my father, and he needed to go to the bathroom. The attendant helped him go to the bathroom. So, they were very good and responsive. They were upbeat about their ability to take care of them.

We looked at Sunrise. It was a pretty nice facility. Their staff seemed very pleasant. There was a pretty good variety of activities for the seniors. Their apartments were of nice size. There was nothing negative about this facility; however, it was far from where my friend had lived. It was far from her bank, her doctors, etc. Nevertheless, it was a pretty nice facility, I would even move in there.

The staff at Sunrise was very friendly and seemed genuinely happy to be working at that facility. They immediately take all new residents in under their wing and are very attentive. The building itself is clean, bright, and well-decorated. The food in the dining room was also very well-prepared. It is obvious that they put effort into choosing healthy and satisfying meals for the residents.

There is a cold feeling when you walk through these doors. The staff was not friendly and the residents looked over medicated. There just did not seem to be very much life here. I spoke to a resident and she said she was just waiting to die. That is not acceptable, she said she does not have visitors and the staff was too busy to sit and chat with her or give her the time of day. I did witness several times while I was here residents trying to get a staff’s attention to no avail. I felt very sad when I left here. The facility was clean and menus looked healthy but when the residents feel unwanted and waiting to die that is unacceptable and I would not want my loved one here.

My grandmother moved into this facility in 2010 after my grandfather passed away. She was fairly independent (she could feed and bathe and dress herself). She used a walker to get around but was just fine mentally and physically. At first, the Sunrise staff was generally pleasant. However, just four months after she arrived, my grandmother suffered a stroke. At her previous assisted living facility, the staff would check up on the residents at night to make sure they were OK. This never happened with my grandmother the night she had the stroke (she was found the next morning sitting in a chair, apparently having been there since 9 p.m. the previous evening). She might have been spared this horrible fate had one of the staff just peered inside the room at some point during the night. (Time matters in a stroke situation.) After a week in the hospital and a month in rehab (my grandmother lost use of her left side), she returned to Sunrise at the strong encouragement of the facility's management. Bad idea. Though the management insisted they could care for her, I soon discovered they were completely unprepared to care for a resident who needed a lot more personal assistance. Of course, the already exorbitant monthly rate skyrocketed. (One month I paid upwards of $9,000!) Most of the staff didn't know how to move her from a bed to a wheelchair, and I personally witnessed some very scary moments in their feeble attempts to do so. They left her alone for hours at a time so she was lonely and bored most of the the time. More disturbingly, due to understaffing, they would sometimes leave her tray of food next to her bed and no one would feed her. I once arrived at 3 p.m. only to find her lunch still sitting next to her untouched. She was hungry but couldn't reach the food. Personal items would disappear. Somehow, they went through a pack of diapers (12-18) in a single day. What were they doing with them? The transportation vehicle was a clunker that was constantly breaking down and the (very nice) driver was injured yet continued to work. There were also the usual assortment of bad eggs, including one "Nurse Ratchet" type who actually told my grandmother "I hate you." As I visited my grandmother most every day, I was witness to all kinds of questionable behavior involving other residents as well. Before my grandmother's stroke, she was accosted by a male resident who should have been confined to the memory care section but was allowed to roam the halls of the other floors freely. My grandmother had a big bruise on her arm from where this man tried to pull her to him and kiss her. My grandmother resisted and that was the result. Though I was assured that this man would be watched more closely, he was still roaming the halls of the non-memory care residents when I finally pulled my grandmother out of there and placed her in a more caring board and care a few months later. I recall another instance where one aide told me she was exhausted because she had to go chasing an elderly resident (memory care) down to the Target (about 1/2 mile away) after someone discovered he was missing. Also, even though my grandmother was unable to walk after her stroke, the Sunrise staff refused to relocate her from the fourth floor to the first floor. Imagine what would have happened in a fire! Also, because this facility is so bottom-lined oriented, not resident-focused as it should be, the Sunrise management kept adding memory care (dementia patients) beyond capacity. When I finally gave notice that I would be moving my grandmother to another facility, you could have froze to death from the icy way these "caregivers" treated my grandmother for the next couple of weeks before I was able to move her out. Consider yourself warned!