Have you ever wondered what trauma brought us together as friends? It was working in Downtown Los Angeles in 2013!! Farz walks through the spooky, creepy, and very gross history of DTLA's least-fine hotel, The Cecil. We talk about the people who've lived there and the ghosts who probably still do. Have you been to a haunted hotel? Let us know! #hauntedhotel #theshining #cecilhotel #DTLA
Have you ever wondered what trauma brought us together as friends? It was working in Downtown Los Angeles in 2013!! Farz walks through the spooky, creepy, and very gross history of DTLA's least-fine hotel, The Cecil. We talk about the people who've lived there and the ghosts who probably still do.
Have you been to a haunted hotel? Let us know!
#hauntedhotel #theshining #cecilhotel #DTLA
Hi Friends! Our transcripts aren't perfect, but I wanted to make sure you had something - if you'd like an edited transcript, I'd be happy to prioritize one for you - please email doomedtofailpod@gmail.com - Thanks! - Taylor
Taylor: TBD. We'll see what day this comes out
>> Taylor: In the matter of the people of the state of California versus Orndal James Simpson, case number ba zero nine six. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not.
>> Farz: What your country can do for you.
>> Taylor: Ask what you can do for your country.
>> Farz: And we are back, Taylor. Hopefully it's Wednesday and I get the edits on time. If it's not, it's a great Thursday. we'll see. We'll see what day this comes out. TBD. How are you?
>> Taylor: I good. How are you?
>> Farz: Good. do you want to go ahead and introduce us?
>> Taylor: I do.
Welcome to doomed to fail, the podcast that brings you history's most notorious disasters
Hi, everyone. Welcome to doomed to fail, the podcast that brings you history's most notorious disasters and epic failures. Twice a week, every week. I am Taylor, as always, joined by fars.
>> Farz: As always, I never go anywhere. I have nowhere to go. I have nowhere to be. Yeah, always here, Jordan.
>> Taylor: Like it?
>> Farz: this week we talked, had a really fun talk about Nostradamus. And now it is my turn to have my little, doom to fill story.
Taylor and I met on February 4, 2013 at a previous company
Taylor, I'm going to start this off by just not talking to you. I'm talking to the audience. So, are you ready?
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: That was for the audience. Did you just hear what I said?
>> Taylor: We're ready.
>> Farz: Thank you, audience.
>> Taylor: Yep, that was them from far away.
>> Farz: So I'm going to go a little bit into our history. So Taylor and I, our lives kind of blended in a very fun, unique, interesting way, I think. And, a lot of really interesting things kind of came out of that. So a little bit of backdrop. Taylor and I met on February 4, 2013. I recall that because it was, I was moving in on February 3 and it was the day of the Super bowl and so was the next day. We're going to start work together. It was going to be our first day of work at our previous company and we're both joining as trainees. I just moved to Los Angeles, literally, like I said, like the day before, from Miami, Taylor moved from New York. We just, like, we were intro to each other through our work and we started kind of communicating that way. And it's interesting, I don't know about YouTube, but it kind of like formally this weird punctuation mark. My adult life. Yeah, there was like pre that company and then after that company is like how I look at my life, a thousand percent.
>> Taylor: It was wild and like, and like.
Taylor and Cameron had different experiences living in Los Angeles
>> Farz: Taylor, Taylor has, like, I think we had like, different experiences because you, things happened to you that we don't need to go into detail that were like, not great. I mostly had a very positive.
>> Taylor: Experience, but, well, I learned a lot about being a pregnant woman in the workplace, which I had never considered before as a thing that I would have to fight for.
>> Farz: that would be the thing that I.
>> Taylor: Had that you did not have. and it was wild. And, you know, whatever we're now, regardless.
>> Farz: Regardless, it was a very, very strange, very unique punctuation point in our, in our adulthood, I think. And, I bring all this up because our friendship kind of evolved from working together. It was through just the turmoils of that, through living in Los Angeles, and everything that kind of came with it. but I kind of envision us as, like, going to Los Angeles all bright eyed and bushy tailed and starting this new chapter in our lives. I mean, so interested and so excited, and it's like, so cool. We're going to do this startup thing. We're going to change the world and all that.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: So February, we started that, that journey, and it was like a fun, cool, like, first two weeks in LA in this new job, and then February 19 came around and I don't know, for me, that would be a day that kind of just like, shifted my mentality about what we were doing or what was going on. Is there anything that you can think of that I'm referring to here?
>> Taylor: Is that the cop? The one on the run?
>> Farz: No. I mean, I wonder when that was. There's so much. There's so.
>> Taylor: Actually, I thought that was right after. Is that it?
>> Farz: So. So Taylor and I are busy working down in our downtown office, changing the world every day. Going to work and be like, we're changing the world. A, one block west, three blocks south of us. On February 19, literally half a mile away from where we were sitting, a maintenance worker opened the door to a thousand gallon water tank and discovered the bloated, marbled green corpse of a woman who had drowned there three weeks earlier.
>> Taylor: So I love this story. Thank you for talking about it. I'm so excited. Did you. I'm sure. Did you watch the documentary about it?
>> Farz: I did.
>> Taylor: How they're like, you take one step out of the hotel, you were in the worst place in America. And I was like, far as exactly that. Far as an eye bright eye, bushy tailed down the street being like, or change the world. And it's like, like, this is the worst street in all of America.
>> Farz: I mean, there's parts of that that are accurate. So I don't know if you recall, but two of our co workers literally got punched in the face for no reason.
>> Taylor: I didn't know that.
>> Farz: Yeah, Phil got punched in the face. He literally walked out of his apartment and he said some crazy homeless woman turned around to him as he was walking to work and punched him in the face. Another one of our poor coworkers. I can't remember his name now. He didn't stick around too long. He had the worst experience. He moved from like San Francisco or something. He was a very, very sweet guy. And he got punched in the face by a homeless person. And then like a month later he got ran over in Hollywood while trying to cross the street. I forgot what his name was. Do you remember this guy?
>> Taylor: No, I don't remember.
>> Farz: It's really bad.
>> Taylor: That's really funny. And yeah, I mean, I was like, I just, I'm a very anti downtown LA person. It's really gross. it smells like pee and that's the least of its problems. but I. Yeah, no. Cause remember the citizen app? I don't have it anywhere because I live here and I don't feel like I needed it. But I had the Citizen app which would tell you when there's a crime and I was connected to you and connected to Alex. And like every day it'd be like there's a machete attack, right? 10ft from Alex and he'd have. And he'd be like, it's okay, I'm in my apartment. I'm on the third floor. So it's like a machete attack in the lobby.
>> Farz: The stories. So for people who like have never lived or been around this area, the stories you hear of La in downtown laden I. It's like hell on earth. It is literally like hell on earth. Like I remember. So Cameron. I think it was Cameron. Maybe it was Ted. I forgot who was somebody that we worked with again at this company. They lived, they lived somewhere else. They live, they were visiting from out of town. They came in for some, some event that was going on in our offices and they mentioned how they heard. They were woken up like 04:00 in the morning to screaming happening. They looked outside and they, they, they said they were haunted by the sound in the vision of someone bouncing somebody else's head off the pavement right outside their window. Like just constantly beating them until he was like, I'm sure they died. Like, I have no idea how that person would have lived. Anyways, that's the environment that we're talking about. We were all bushy tailed going into.
>> Taylor: We were super, super excited. And it's like one of the worst places. One more, one more story I went to, I had, like, an event to go to. It was a mile away from the office. And I was like, oh, I'm going to walk.
Kyle says he drove me there because there was no safe way
I, like, casually said that and Kyle was like, you're absolutely not walking. And he drove me there. I was like, can I just walk a mile? I used to walk like 10 miles a day in New York. And they were like, nope. Like, you can't. There's no safe way to get there.
>> Farz: So, so that's the.
So many people accidentally walk into skid row because you go on apps
So I'm gonna get into this here in a little bit. So this. So I'm not actually. So I'm gonna talk about the lamb situation, Elisa Lam situation, because it's insane. But I'm actually talking mostly about, like, the history of the Cecil hotel itself and, like, what. What it was all about. And that's been covered a lot too, but I found a lot of really interesting stuff because I was mostly just curious, like, what happened, what's. What's happening to it today? Like, what is. What's gone going on now? And that's what, like, spur kind of this interest in its history. But, to your point, there's so many people who go to LA and they accidentally walk into skid row because you go on, like, the apps and say, hey, I'm trying to get to this spot because there's, there's basically the clean, domesticated, quote unquote, part of downtown LA, which is where, like, a lot of fancy restaurants are really cool stuff. Then there's the warehouse district, which is like, super hip and like, kind of like a, ah, grungy or kind of a vibe, that's where lost spirits was. I don't know if you ever did lost spirits. I think I did that with Jay. But anyways, like, that's where, like, a lot of, like, cool stuff goes on, off the side. So if you. If you're downtown or you're in the art, the arts district and you want to go to the other side, it'll route you directly through skid row.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: And you look at it, you're like, okay, so, like, what is that? Like a half a mile or a mile walk, whatever else, walk there. Like, am I gonna get an Uber? Get the Uber. Always. It is literally hell on earth. Do not walk through it.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
The Cecil Hotel was built in downtown LA in 1924. It was designed as an art deco hotel
>> Farz: So, on that note, yes, we're gonna go into the Cecil hotel because it is. It is absolutely fascinating. I learned so much about how it came to be and why it is the way that it is, like, all the things around it. So the Cecil hotel, it was kind of rebranded as stay on main. And so for the purpose of this conversation, let's call the Cecil Hotel. Historically, that's what it is. It is actually a historical building now. Or it became one in like, 2017 or 14. I forgot exactly what. But that's what it's known as. So the rebranding also didn't work. Like, everybody knows what it is.
>> Taylor: So you can't just, like, rename it and be like, this isn't haunted.
>> Farz: Yeah. So it was, built in downtown LA in 1924. It was imagined by three hoteliers, these guys named William Hannah, Charles Dix and Robert shops. It was designed as an art deco hotel by Lloyd Lester Smith. And it cost about 1.5 million to build back then. The equivalent of. Equivalent, about 27 million today. It is actually a pretty beautiful hotel. Like, if you look at the lobby and if you've seen american horror Story hotel series. So that hotel was, designed after the architectural renderings of the cecil. So, like, that's what it looked like. It's beautiful.
>> Taylor: And I love that. That vibe is very like the shining also. Rip. Shelley Duvall died this week.
>> Farz: Rip Shelly.
>> Taylor: but yeah, it's like that art deco creepy Hotel is the best.
>> Farz: So cool. So cool. and even today, actually. Well, I'll get into this. I'll get into this. At the time, it was built for high flyers. So this is 1924. It was built to the standards of what you would consider, like, somebody who would be going to a Ritz Carlton, not somebody who's going to a Holiday inn. It was meant to be kind of like a destination for successful folks. The problem these three guys and the owners of the Cecil were met with almost immediately after opening were threefold. One was the great Depression, kicked off about five years after it opened. And. And also things just before great Depression, things aren't great. It's like there's one day when it's great Depression. Like, it was bad.
>> Taylor: yeah, exactly.
>> Farz: It was like, leading up to it. So people didn't have all that kind of. All that much money anyway. So there was that piece of it. The second problem was that, again, Taylor and I's, lives kind of tying into this. Our former office was the Biltmore Hotel. And the Biltmore had opened again several blocks up from where the cecil was further north. And at that time, if the. Let's call. Let's call the cecil, like, I don't know, like a hyatt, then the Biltmore was like a Ritz Carlton like, it was, it was, it was a notch above. It was also considered the biggest hotel, in the country at the time. So it had a lot more cache. So even people during the Great Depression who might have had money wanted to visit it weren't going to go to the Cecil, they're going to go to the Biltmore. So there was that. The third problem it had was what we just talked about, skid row. So one rumor to this.
>> Taylor: Wow. Even then.
>> Farz: Yeah, even then. Even so. Worse than, shockingly enough, Taylor. Worse then, yeah.
>> Taylor: I moved there from New York City and I was like, I love cities. I live in New York City for over a decade and I stepped 1ft in downtown LA and I was like, oh no, oh no.
>> Farz: Yeah, it is, it is, I mean, it's kind of a sight to see. God, I remember there was another guy, there's very, very sweet guy we work with. and he was like a great family guy out of, Tennessee. And he lived in Tennessee his whole life and he would come and visit and I remember one time we were talking and he was like, I literally cry when I get here because I can't believe the way people live. Like, it is just so terrible. So, I mean, you literally see people dead on the streets. Like, it is not at all unusual to see a dead body, like just walking around. Anyways, get back on.
One rumor that is worth dispelling right now is that Cecil's not on skid row
Yeah, no, so one rumor that is worth dispelling right now is that the Cecil's not on skid row. Like I said, where Taylor and I worked was only one block up and two blocks away from the cecil where it currently stands. And where we worked was across from Pershing Square, like one of the green parts of downtown LA. Like it's not in the hellhole that we just described. In fact, one of the, one of like the hottest tourist destinations is on the same block as a Cecil Cole's french dip, one of the birthplaces of the french dip sandwich and a really good place to go eat if you're ever visiting in LA.
>> Taylor: We've definitely been there several times. It's a lovely lunch spot if you want to drink a beer and eat a sandwich at lunche.
>> Farz: Yeah, we've been there a few. It's great. But, but it's literally on the same block as a Cecil. Right now, this part of downtown is like kind of like the hipper part of downtown. that being said, in the 1930s when skid row was actually forming up as a thing, the boundary line for it, the cecil, right on the perimeter. So the perimeter that that is articulated of where skid rows, original boundary lines were. We're going to be main street on the north, which is again the street that the cecil is on. So to the south of the Cecil is where the between. So between that street, main, where the Cecil is, and south towards where the arts district currently stops is where the bulk of skid row actually is. And the reason why it ended up forming there is just because like that kind of a place held the businesses that would attract homeless people. It had a lot of, for example, Sros or single room m occupancy hotels that were daily or weekly rentals. And that's kind of how it develops. As of right now, there's an approximate 6000 people living out in the open in the streets of Skid Row, which is like a drop in the bucket. I think that overall, the total Los Angeles homelessness is somewhere around 100,000. 6000 or on the streets of skid, row. When the cecil opened, that number was 10,000.
>> Taylor: Wow, interesting.
>> Farz: Yeah. So it's actually gone down.
>> Taylor: I also like, I don't know, I feel like I know about single room occupancy things and things like that from like learning about the past, you know, like, I don't feel like I know about it from now, but that must still be a thing where you can like do things. I feel like, I think about it as like a great depression, like old thing. And here's a deep rub and a book that I know you've not read, but there's a book called Sister Carrie. if anyone's read it.
>> Farz: I have read that you have not.
>> Taylor: Where they like very in detail, talk about living in these situations where men would stand on the street and then some of them would be given a room, some that wouldn't be. It was like a whole thing.
>> Farz: So yes, this is still a thing. So if you drive on the highways of Texas, you will come upon, hotels that have weekly and monthly rates. Sometimes you get hourly rates, which is terrifying because what are you doing in there hourly?
>> Taylor: Well, you're doing sex work in there hourly. But I think that another thing that I saw on social media about a motel that was kind of a crappy motel, that was that kind of motel. But they were like the people who stay here, people who are running away from abusive partners, they need to take a shower, they need to chill their insulin, stuff like that. You know, this is a terrible way to live.
>> Farz: Some of it's really like, actually we're going to get into this here a little bit later. Some of it is like, super, super sad situations that people should be helping with. And other times it's just like, we don't need to see any of this, but we'll get into that.
>> Taylor: Are we going to blame Ronald Reagan yet or get in a little bit?
>> Farz: So this doesn't really touch on Reagan, although you could blame a lot part of it on the shutting down of mental institutions, I'm sure.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: but anyways. Well, so here's the thing. Those people would end up in jail. I don't know. Anyways, we can talk about that later.
From the 1930s on, the Cecil suffered a decline in popularity
But so anyways, as the years progressed, the Cecil didn't really keep up with the time, so it eventually found itself more suited to being an SRO rather than a luxury hotel. So, like, for examples. And then, by the 1980s, guests of the Cecil still had to use, like, the same bathrooms on the same, like, per floor as opposed to, like, you know, now where you expect your hotel to have a bathroom in it.
>> Taylor: Yes.
>> Farz: In the room. So from the 1930s on, it was kind of a slow and steady decline as some notable events took place, several worth discussing. There were nine suicide suicides that occurred that are documented that range from poisoning, jumping from a high floor, slitting one's own throat, and a gunshot wound to the head. There was at least two murders, but there was also a few suspected ones that aren't on the list, which include Lisa Lamb. one of those murders was a 19 year old woman who in 1944, while staying at the Cecil with her boyfriend, was secretly pregnant and didn't know it or didn't tell anyone. And she went to labor in the bathroom and she ended up just taking the baby and throwing out of the window.
>> Taylor: Don't love that.
>> Farz: Not good for others. We don't know if it's murder or suicide. Were people who somehow landed dead from a high floor. So, there was a lot of those. And the most recent one was in 2015.
>> Taylor: Wow.
>> Farz: So, yeah, the cecil kind of operated as like, a battery of evil attracting just horrible people. I mean, I have a hard time saying horrible people because, like, you don't know what someone's circumstances are, right? Like, you don't know why someone ends up in the situation they end up in. So, like, I don't know, like, I just. It just sounds like hell on earth is what it sounds like. It sounds like the walls, that place is just absolutely just garbage.
>> Taylor: I think it's like a. It's like a self fulfilling prophecy. Like, if you, you know, the people who like, need that are probably troubled, you know, and then like, who knows what's going to happen?
>> Farz: So the, for example, this battery of evil theory, there's some punctuation, marks on this that are worth noting. So for example, the black dog, Elizabeth short, the last sighting of her was apparently at the, at the Cecil hotel, which I think you called out. It was so she. So it's. It's not known for sure. So, like, she was also seen, presumably seen in the Biltmore, but she was also presumably seen at the Cecil. But like, it's 1930s. Like, people are gonna make stuff up. So we don't know. Or it could be part of like, the myth building of the Cecil we do know for sure is that in room 1419 during the 1980s, Richard Ramirez, the night stalker, was living there. He was living at the Cecil while going around and killing people. This story is incredible. I did not know this, apparently. So. It was $14 a night. That's what he was paying. And after a murder, he was covered in blood. What he would do is he would go to the Cecil. Okay. By the way, this is what downtown LA is like. Like that this guy was covered in blood.
>> Taylor: You can be covered in blood there.
>> Farz: Could be covered in blood there. What he would do is you would go to the dumpsters on the ground floor of the cecil, strip naked, throw all of his bloody clothes in the dumpster. Then he would walk up to his room naked. That's what the cecil was like.
>> Taylor: And no one knew he was a nightstalk.
>> Farz: No one was like, nobody thought it was weird. shortly after his reign of terror, the ceaser, Cecil, another famous serial killer, Jack Unterweger, an australian austrian writer and serial killer, made his way to LA and he stated the cecil, where he went on to kill three prostitutes. that's what he did in the US. He killed a further seven in Austria and one in Czechoslovakia. so that's kind of the history of some of the folks that were living there. so as we get into the early two thousands, skid row ends up getting pushed further south from Maine. So that basically means that Cecil's completely out of being skid row. It's not on the boundary line anymore. And so the owners of Cecil thought this is our chance to kind of, redo this. How do we take this dirty, seedy, bloody, disgusting underground reputation, this shit hole, hotel filled heroin, needles? What do we do with it? That we're going to rebrand it in 2011. As a stay on main, which is like, just so stupid.
>> Taylor: Like, so stupid. And didn't they, like, I thought you were talking about this, but it's like, it was like, still two hotels, but they had, like, changed the lobby.
>> Farz: Yeah, so they didn't change the lobby. It was, it was, it was the cecil. And then it was. Stay on main was meant to be like a hostel type of an environment. It's like I said, a lot of people were sharing bathrooms and so that suited more like hostile living. And so what they were trying to advertise was all that is where, where the hostel on this side were, like a, boutique hotel on this other side.
>> Taylor: Got it.
>> Farz: And they have separate entrances and separate branding. But it, but you were still, it was the same shit. Like, you were on the same floor.
>> Taylor: Right. You were like, showing an elevator.
>> Farz: You were sharing elevators. Exactly.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: and so that was basically what, what they decided to do. The idea being that we're going to position ourselves for low budget travelers. I could have sworn we've, like, we try to think, try to plan, like, actually staying at the Cecil at one point and decide against it.
>> Taylor: We may have. And I feel like the thing I'm most afraid of is, like, bugs, really.
>> Farz: Really, really bad roach and, mice problem there.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Yeah, that checks out.
Elisa Lam suffered from mental illness and traveled to California on Amtrak
>> Farz: So one traveler, obviously, that decided to take advantage of this hostile, low cost living was Elisa Lam. Again, this story's been covered a million times. The Netflix documentary on it was absolutely incredible. I'll get into the high points of this. Cause it's just so crazy, so good.
>> Taylor: Like, it's terrible. But I have several thoughts after you're done.
>> Farz: So it's funny. Cause I actually, Louis, have a bold outline part of this where I'm like, Taylor, what do you think of it?
>> Taylor: Exactly? Great. Perfect.
>> Farz: So the highlights of this are, Lam was a 21 year old Vancouver resident. She was studying at the University of British Columbia. She suffered from mental illness and had exhibited weird patterns of erratic behavior. She was put on a number of medications, kind of calm her symptoms. She eventually would withdraw from the University of British Columbia and decided to take a trip south to California via the Amtrak on January 26, 2013. I guess I was like, what? Like a week before you and I arrived, she arrives in LA and checks into the cecil. she was apparently in a shared room until a roommate complained about her behavior, including leaving notes for her, telling her to go away, and locking the door, making her use passwords to get back into her own room, which is like, crazy, apparently, she also went to a, taping of the Conan O'Brien show and made such a ruckus they kicked her out. She was like escort out by security. Yeah, she was like.
>> Taylor: I mean, she definitely should have continued to be on her meds. Yeah, that's the part of the lesson here is if you need medication and you feel better, stay on that medication. It is helping you. Yeah, you need to be on your medication. And as you know, clearly they don't.
>> Farz: Didn't do she? Yeah, she had some medication. Let me get to that. So on January 31, she was supposed to check out of the Cecil and she didn't. She'd also been contacting her parents every day to let them. Let them know about her whereabouts. And she also stopped calling. And so they ended up calling the LAPD and they flew down to LA themselves to help figure out what's going on with her. I. Police used docs to search the hotel and couldn't find anything. A week later, they went to putting up fires around the neighborhood. And then a week after that, the police released the last stone recording of Lamb, which still gives me chills because I already, like, I rewatched it. Like, I literally am going to use films right now. Like. Tommy.
>> Taylor: I know.
>> Farz: Taylor, what do you think of the video?
>> Taylor: Okay, so I scared the fucking shit out of myself one time googling the elevator game. Have you ever googled the elevator game? Oh my God. I actually chose her now. Okay, so she. Okay, so Islam, this is me by memory, is in the elevator, like pressing a bunch of buttons, but like moving and looking out the. Looking out the doors and like looking back and like maybe talking to someone, like out of the camera and like, in the camera and it's like really weird, right?
>> Farz: Yes.
>> Taylor: So I was like, I don't know, looking this up, of course. And there's this game called the elevator game, which is not what she was doing, but it's like a thing where you like press a button and then go to a floor and the door will open and then you do like a couple other, like in, in order. And then on one floor you close your eyes and a woman will get on the elevator, but you can't look at her. And then you have to like press another one and do a thing and then you're like, then you're somewhere else and like, it's so creepy. There's actually a pretty good horror movie called the Elevator game where they do it and it is. It's scary. So, like, thinking that she might have been doing that was scary. But also, she's obviously having a psychotic breakdown.
>> Farz: Have you ever done that?
>> Taylor: the elevator game? I would absolutely never do it.
>> Farz: No elevator guys, if anybody's done this, can you please.
>> Taylor: It scares the shit out of me. And it's like one of those things where you're like, why? Why does it scare the shit out of me? I'm like, Not doing it. No way. It's too scary.
There were rumors that she was seeing a ghost or talking to someone
>> Farz: What do you, what do you recall about the video? What did you, what did you feel or think when you watched the video?
>> Taylor: So I've also heard rumors that, like, she was seeing a ghost or she was talking to someone. You know, Richard Ramirez had not died yet, so people were like, maybe it's him or, like, his ghost or. But he wasn't dead, so, no. she obviously looks like she's in distress, and she looks very, like just. She looks like she's looking for someone following her. Right?
>> Farz: Yeah. yeah, that sounds about right. Is that the thing you remember the most about the whole case as the creepiest thing about the case?
>> Taylor: No. I remember people brushing their teeth with the dead body water.
>> Farz: Great.
On February 19, hotel guests started complaining about the water
So the next part I'm going into is on February 19, hotel guests started about the water. They started complaining that the color was off, the taste was off, the water pressure. so on that morning, the hotel maintenance worker went onto the roof and opened one of the four 1000 gallon water tanks and found her lying face down naked. she had been in there decomposing for three weeks.
>> Taylor: I want to die.
>> Farz: I, like, what would you do? I was thinking myself, like, would I just drink bleach or, like, what would I do? Like, I can't.
>> Taylor: How would you, what would you do?
>> Farz: I don't know what you would, you would have to, like, you would have to join every major religion and go to every. You were, you were eating.
>> Taylor: I would eat an exercise human. I would need to see a shaman of some sort, maybe ayahuasca and just throw it all up.
>> Farz: God damn.
>> Taylor: I mean. Oh, my God. And also, like, what else is those water tanks? Like, how is that a way to store water in 2020?
>> Farz: Yeah, so, so I'm getting into that too, because apparently what ended up happening was this guy obviously reported this to the police. Police would drain the tank, cut a hole into it to recover her body. She was autopsied. Her death was report, as external drowning with bipolar disorder disorder as a significant factor. No drugs of consequence were found in her system except for the ones that she was prescribed, but she was also under medicating herself, which was clear given the amount of drugs that she was, was in her system. She had a tiny amount of alcohol in her system. And then the question became, how did she actually get into the tank to begin with? Because there was no direct guest access to the roof. So all police could ascertain was that when they originally did the search with the dogs, the dogs lost her scent at a window that was connected to a fire escape, which if you climbed, it would take you up to the roof.
>> Taylor: And, and they didn't go up to the roof.
>> Farz: Yeah, yeah, she apparently climbed that once you're on the.
>> Taylor: She disappeared out, this window.
>> Farz: Yeah, well, they could have assumed that maybe she, like, actually, I don't know what they thought. Yeah, you're right.
>> Taylor: Either be on the ground, she either went up or down. Right.
>> Farz: Simply. Maybe it was a bad, maybe they didn't think the dog was good at sniffing.
>> Taylor: I don't know, it was his first day. I don't know.
>> Farz: so apparently at that point, she climbed an eight foot ladder and then went inside the tank. And then you assume that she was like opening the well. No, she got naked, then she got into the tank. So what ended up being concluded out of this was that two of the tanks, there's four of them. Two of the tanks, the doors were just left open to the water tank. Which begs the question, what else were they drinking?
>> Taylor: That's what. Oh, yes, that's exactly my question.
>> Farz: How many dead pigeons?
>> Taylor: Exactly. I'm thinking of dead birds and dead rats and like, oh my God, I need like seven.
>> Farz: Hotel. What a horrible, horrible.
>> Taylor: But every building in like LA has that, like, right. Like all the downtown, there's a lot of those wooden water tanks. And in New York and everywhere, you know, like, what is in those water tanks? Why is it up there?
>> Farz: So gross?
>> Taylor: Why is that? They were doing water.
>> Farz: Now it's not so gross.
>> Taylor: Oh my God, I'm gonna, I'm drinking a, cream, ah, soda. I'm just gonna drink cream soda from now on. I'm not gonna drink water anymore.
>> Farz: Taylor, how terrifying is that? You, from her perspective, you're in a thousand gallon tank.
>> Taylor: I feel like this happened in like a couple movies where people die in water tanks. Like, I think what happened in like, that Baz Luhrmann Australia movie and like, maybe in a horror movie, but like, once you get in, you can't get out. You know?
>> Farz: You can't get out.
>> Taylor: There's no, like, there's like a, you know, depending on how much water is in there, there's like several feet of water tank between you and the, get in, but hard to get out.
>> Farz: Well, she also closed the latch on her way in, and so that's heavy, too. And in a water tank, you have nothing to push off of, so. Yeah.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: Wow, that's really scary. I'm getting chills. I don't like this story.
>> Taylor: Oh, my God.
Taylor: The movie Dark Water was from 2005. Jennifer Connelly starred in it
>> Farz: Also, Taylor, the movie is called Dark Water. It was from 2005 when, What's her name? Oh, God. Jennifer Connelly. Her and her daughter move into a rundown apartment building and the water is all gross. And they eventually go to the roof and they find that there was a dead girl that was killed and stuffed the water tank.
>> Taylor: Oh, God.
>> Farz: In 2005. And the name of the daughter that she moves in with is Cecilia. Really close to Cecil.
>> Taylor: Isn't there something else that spells out Elisa? Lam, Like a parasite or something? What's the other thing? Yeah, there's like something. Oh, my God. I'll find it later. There's something there, like, they found like a thing that it. In the water that is like a parasite that is named an Elisa. Lamb or like a lamb or something. Anyway, I'm not gonna read that. I keep going.
>> Farz: So, one part about this case that I kind of loved reading about was that the parents apparently ended up filing a lawsuit against the Cecil hotel about creating an unreasonable risk of harm for its guests. And then I was like, if. Is it unreasonable or is it reasonable to assume that your guests aren't going to climb onto the roof and then get inside, like out of a window.
>> Taylor: Up a fire escape, climb the ladder, go in? I mean, it's crazy. You would never have guessed that was something that was going to happen.
>> Farz: It's absolutely crazy. So, anyways, that gets thrown out of court, they're like, obviously we're dismissing this.
>> Taylor: Because, like, it's terrible, of course. And I feel so. I feel so bad for them. But that's not.
>> Farz: Yeah, that's not on that. So.
The plan was to renovate the Cecil and then sell it to a holding company
So anyways, we move on. we are in the year 2014. So. So the owners of the seats were like, let's get rid of our ghost hotel. And so they ended up selling it to a real estate holding company. The plan was to revitalize the hotel. And, again, by this time, it wasn't part of skid row. Instead thought, we just shut this place down, renovations, and, And just really tear it from the ground up, essentially. unfortunately, during this process, Covid also, hit la and all this work was suspended. So the hotel and all operations were shut down during this time because they were planning on just doing the full renovations. But it's noted that a content creator, this guy named Pete Montezingo, he had a. He has a YouTube channel. You can look him up. He, moved into an apartment building directly across from the cecil while it was unoccupied. And he just started recording this thing day and night. And the shit you saw, like, again, it will make your skin crawl. Like, what. What happened was that he was crowdsourcing because, I mean, it was just literally recording 24/7 so he was crowdsourcing and people like, hey, tell me if you see anything on this, like, live stream of the Cecil. And so people would just message him in and say, hey, at this time marker, look at this window over on this side, this many floors up and you see stuff going on. There's stuff happening, like lights becoming. Going on and off. You'd see things moving inside the. Inside the cecil. You'd see people show up on the balcony and then go away. Like, it was really creepy.
>> Taylor: Zachary, I'm 100% watching the shining tonight. I've guessed. And I'm gonna make.
>> Farz: That's a really good. That's a really good, honor to show you.
YouTube video claims hotel Cecil in Los Angeles is haunted
Duvall and hotels.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: the one that I was watching. So I was watching one the videos entitled proof hotel Cecil is haunted. And again, if you go to time markers 316 and 514, you see someone doing stuff. Like there's someone there inside the hotel. I mean, who knows? Like, it could have been that homeless people broke in and stayed there. But how creepy is that in this giant 14 floor?
>> Taylor: Wait, tell me the, when to go. What to go?
>> Farz: So it's 316 and then 514.
>> Taylor: Okay.
>> Farz: Might be like a second before that because whatever. Like. But you'll. You'll get it.
>> Taylor: Oh, I see. Okay, but people probably were in there, right?
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: I mean, even though, like, it was.
>> Farz: Like maybe like somebody broke in or. Yeah, yeah, whatever. But like, it seems like there's a lot of activity happening in a seemingly abandoned hotel. And it's. It just adds to the lore of how unbelievably creepy this thing is.
>> Taylor: It's so creepy. I love it.
>> Farz: I heard.
>> Taylor: So someone else that we worked with had said that. I won't even tell you who it was, but they had told me that they saw someone that they know had a wedding there at, stay on main. And they had like, they, like, saw someone that wasn't invited to the wedding, and it was, like, not a real person.
>> Farz: Wait, the person that we know went to a wedding there?
>> Taylor: Yeah. And they, like, saw someone there that, like, wasn't real or something?
>> Farz: Wasn't real.
>> Taylor: Like, it was a ghost.
>> Farz: Interesting. Is it someone credible?
>> Taylor: No.
>> Farz: Okay.
>> Taylor: Not gonna say their name.
>> Farz: I have, like, a short list that I suspect. So anyways, part of the hotel reopened in late 2021. I mean, it was pretty much 2022. It was, like, February or December 13, 2021. So call 2022. Only reason I'm pointing that out is because Covid was kind of, like, a little bit going away, and so it ended up reopening, and they got enough work done to get it up in, working order. at that time, it essentially became a low income boarding house. So, as of late 2023, the Cecil has about 318 residents receiving rental subsidies from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority or the department of Health.
>> Farz: There is. Well, I'll get, I'll talk about this in a minute. But the conditions are horrible. Horrible, horrible, horrible. There's mold everywhere. The building, rooms, the building itself, the rooms and facilities, all are in disrepair. All of them are dilapidated. There's roaches and mice throughout the place. The elevator breaks constantly. There are only two washers and two dryers for the entire 600 room hotel. And, one thing they mentioned is, like, these people don't have any money. It's like when they do their laundry, they break it because they load every possible thing they can stuff into the damn washer in there, and it breaks. And so, and again, you're dealing with severely traumatized and mentally ill homeless people. And, so obviously there's a lot of substance abuse. There's obviously a lot of violence that's taking place within its walls. Yeah. I was reading an LA Times article, and the entire time I was reading this article, I was thinking, I imagine that what these living conditions are like, or, is basically like, what prison is like. Like a horrible, horrible, horrible prison. I. Yeah, rounded by crazy people who care about nothing and are constantly making life in the conditions around you worse and more miserable. Then I get towards the end where a resident is quoted it as saying this about the room, saying, quote, they're like prison cells. I was like, oh, okay. Well, there you go. Because, I mean, you look at the pictures, you're like, what? It just looks like hell. Like. Again, it's like hell on earth. Like, yeah, a ah, while ago, I was listening to this podcast about homelessness. I think it was, you're wrong about, which I've quoted before in the past. They're basically talking about the conditions of homelessness and how to get out of homelessness and stuff like that. And one thing that they brought up that seemed like an obvious solution homelessness is to provide housing. And the example that they cited were people who had a string of bad luck, kind of like what you referred to earlier, till it's like a woman who was in an abusive relationship or had a drug addiction and left, but had no source of income. So she slept in her car, then she racked up some tickets or car got towed. So now she's homeless, and she can't get far enough ahead to get out of homelessness without housing. So that's situation like an example or an anecdotal piece where a roof over that person's head would actually change their lives completely. Like, that would be like the thing that goes on. But the problem with the Cecil today is that putting a. Well, the thing that the Cecil today illustrates that putting a roof over any homeless person's head actually doesn't solve anything because they have no services, they have mental health problems that they can't get over. All you're doing is taking the conditions of being homeless on the streets and putting them in a container so that people can't see it and can't actually help it.
>> Taylor: I watch this, like, I watch a lot of videos of, like, conservatives, like, kind of accidentally getting, getting to the, getting around to it. And there's one, this young woman who was like, homeless people don't want help. Like, they actually, like, don't need houses. They need, like, mental health services. And it was just like, she went so conservative, she ended up socialist. Because you're like, yeah, of course they do.
Cecil hotel in Los Angeles is housing homeless tenants
They need help.
>> Farz: I know. If you go far along in one. One path, you eventually cross over to the other side.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: yeah, I mean, that's. So the conditions there are, I mean, what we described at the top of this episode, what skid row is, take that and put it in a building. That's literally what it is today. And, you know, you look at why that's the situation, and the reason is that the owners of the building need to make money, and, well, they probably don't need to make money, but they want to make money. And these subsidies is how they get paid because, you know, what else you gonna do with it? We gonna open it as a hotel. It's a, it's a roach motel. Like, nobody, would stay there.
>> Taylor: Does so. Does stay on main still existential?
>> Farz: I think so.
>> Taylor: Oh, no, it says closed as of July 2024.
>> Farz: Okay. Yeah, so. But you know what? Yeah, actually that entire concept, I guess, will be done away with because it's not a hotel anymore. It's literally just like low income housing. And so these guys, owners of the Cecil, now get paid off these vouchers the government is providing. And so that's why they open without any. Any sort of, assistance or therapy or mental health or anything. Eventually the game plan was turn that beautiful lobby that actually is very, very beautiful. Turn that beautiful lobby into kind of like a receiving area for all kinds of services for the homeless. And so that's essentially what it's kind of turning into. so they have plans of bringing this stuff online. It's just not there right now. And so it, should get there eventually. the name of the name of that La Times article, which is actually free if you want to read it. Cecil hotel housing homeless tenants. Problem is kind of the name of it. and there's pictures of the Cecil on there as well. Like what the interior looks like.
>> Taylor: There are, I'm reading the reviews, for Google reviews of it, and they're hilarious. One of them is terrible experience. Heard footsteps in the hallway. Nobody was there. Maintenance. Suspicious as hell. Anyway, don't say there, you dumb.
>> Farz: Yeah, yeah, obviously don't. God, I mean, I wanted to just because I was like, it's so creepy. It's so scary. Like, it's so haunted. there was, someone who said, I forgot what it was where I read this, but somebody said that the higher up you go, the more sense of like, just desperation and like, evil you feel. which I find interesting because the top floor. Well, the top floor is 15, but they don't have a, 13. Well, yeah, so the 14th floor is the 13th floor. Right. And I think that's the floor that Richard Ramirez was on. And so the fact that they kind of reference evilness, it's like, it's kind of cool.
>> Taylor: Can you imagine? Like, he wasn't like, devoid of blood when took all of his clothes off. He's still wearing his like, sambas or whatever shoes he was wearing. You know, so he's still wearing his shoes. He. His head. His hair is covered in blood. He looks like Richard Ramirez. It looks like out of his fucking mind. His teeth are falling out. He's. His hands are bloody and he's naked. He's like, hey, guys, I kind of.
>> Farz: I kind of love it.
>> Taylor: What? Like, I just, it's like, it's like.
>> Farz: What, what a great encapsulation. Like, you literally don't have to tell anybody anything else about anything going on in LA in the 1980s and downtown. All you have to do is tell them that story and it's like, I never want to be anywhere around this.
>> Taylor: Yep, that is it. That's the, that's the answer.
In a few months we're celebrating the 100th year of the Cecil
>> Farz: it's interesting, actually. So the 100th year anniversary of the Cecil is this year. So like I said, it opened on December 20, 1924. So in a few months we're going to celebrate the 100th year of the Cecil, which again is a historic, landmark. I don't know why.
>> Taylor: I mean, that is a really great question. I feel like potentially because of the architecture and like the dream, you know?
>> Farz: But everything I read about the Cecil, everything I read about it was like, just knock it down. Like, it is just misery. Just knock it down. Build something cool and fly nice on.
>> Taylor: That property, which will build like a high rise apartment, you know? And then like people will pay an, atrocious amount of money to live there even though it's gross.
>> Farz: Yeah, yeah. I mean, for the, for what it's worth, I've stayed inside the Biltmore and the Biltmore is also terrifying and. it's a nice place.
>> Taylor: I stayed in the Biltmore too. I also stayed in a similar vibe. I stayed in a hotel in Culver City. I think it's just called the culver. and it was very, it was very much like that. It was like, It's the same architecture. It's creepy when you get in, it's like dark and they have like a jazz band playing and they give you a glass of champagne and I'm like, are you a ghost lady who's checking me in? You know, like you're in like a little tiny elevator with like a grate, you know, like a gate like that. It was lovely. I really liked that. that was when at my last job, I stayed an extra night after a meeting and I refused to go back to the shitty Marriott they always let us, made us stay at. So I booked myself with a culver. No one said anything. but yeah, when I stayed at the Biltmore one night, because I was losing my mind, my husband brought me a night there, my two young children. I went to the pool. The pool was really fun. It felt like being on the Titanic, you know?
>> Farz: you know, as we were talking, I literally thought about that, because I remember you told me you went to the pool. It was, like, in the morning or something. You went.
>> Taylor: Yeah, I went something in the morning, which is out of character.
>> Farz: Yeah. And, And I just thought how scary it must have been.
>> Taylor: It was.
>> Farz: Yeah. Because it was. It's not an. It's an indoor pool.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: It's in the. In the basement, and it's like child, and, like, it's cool, but it's scary. I have a picture.
>> Farz: Yeah. Wait, this can't be it. Oh, that's the biltmore. Oh, my God. That one's really scary. So, I went with. Oh, yeah, me and we did this together. We went to the Biltmore state in North Carolina, remember, and they showed us the pool, and I was like, this is the most terrifying, terrifying thing I've ever seen in my life.
>> Taylor: It was like a weird inside.
>> Farz: It's so scary. Look it up. Look at the Biltmore. If you look up indoor Biltmore pool, the first pictures are this pool, which is, like, the scariest pool in the world. I want to look at the la one. Okay. This one's not terrible. I mean, the one in the house is way scarier than the one in the Biltmore.
>> Taylor: I was like, in the basement. It's weird. Yeah. Okay.
>> Farz: I can't look at this. It makes me scared.
>> Taylor: Yay. I'm scared. it is 10:00 in the morning, and I am afraid.
So, on April 9 of 2022, there was another story coming out of
So, there was.
>> Farz: So, on April 9 of 2022, there was another story coming out of Mexico in Monterey of a yemenite girl. Woman. I don't know. She's like, 1819 years old, whatever you want to call her. Debanhi, Escobar, who was also found in a water tank. yeah. that story, I didn't go super into the details of it just came up as, like, hey, this is another very similar, story to Elisa Lamb. And so I'm gonna. I'm gonna read more of that and see what comes of it. But, yeah, it sounds terrifying.
>> Taylor: What a terrible, dark, and scary way to go.
>> Farz: Yeah. Yeah. So.
>> Taylor: That was super fun. that was like, it would walk through our friendship, and I loved it.
>> Farz: Yeah, yeah. We went, went all the way back. I mean, it. I sometimes forget how close in time the Lisa lam thing happened when we moved there. And you look there and like, yeah, we were just really excited and just happy to be there. And it's like, two weeks later, they're flying a tank over us on a helicopter that they're taking to some police facility that a woman drowned in. It's just, like, crazy.
>> Taylor: Did you. In the documentary, there's that, like, sweet european couple who were sitting there, remember? They were like, yeah, the water started to get weird. Like, all the things, they're like, oh, my God, you're poor babies.
>> Farz: Yeah, I have no idea. Again, I think. I think you would just have to. I don't. I don't know. It's weird. How would you, if you drank that water? Oh, my God.
>> Taylor: Oh, my God. And, I also. I really like american horror story hotel.
>> Farz: That's the best one.
>> Taylor: It has the great vibe. I really like it.
>> Farz: Do you agree it's the best one?
>> Taylor: No, I like Roanoke, but, But I do really like hotel.
>> Farz: Those first five seasons were just absolutely killer. I didn't really get into the most recent one.
>> Taylor: The most. Oh, my God. The most recent one was terrible. Like, just terrible.
>> Farz: With Kim Kardashian?
>> Taylor: Yeah. Like, it ended, and I was like, what the hell? It was so stupid and so bad. but I will keep watching it forever, as long as I keep making it, because I'm waiting for a good one.
>> Farz: So. Murder house, asylum hotel. I think those were the best ones.
>> Taylor: Did you see Roanoke?
>> Farz: I saw parts of Roanoke. You bring up the teeth all the time. Enough to where I feel like I might as well seen it.
>> Taylor: You should. You should. We should make that same pact. If. If I tell you I saw teeth falling from the sky, I need you to believe me and I need you to help me. I, will believe you.
>> Farz: Deal? Okay, deal. Cool.
Thank you, everyone, for listening and for sharing
Well, we can go ahead and wrap up. Is there anything you want to leave us off with?
>> Taylor: no. Thank you, everyone, for listening and for sharing and everybody who has written in. we are@doomtofellapodmail.com and doom to fill a pod on all the social medias. So please tell your friends.
>> Farz: Please tell your friends. Awesome. Thanks, Taylor. We're going.