Hi everyone:

I am trying to help an Italian friend find a place to stay in Beverly Hills for the month of March. She has to be in the Beverly Hills area during that time, and she is looking for a place that rents out for extended stays. The main thing that she insists on is a place that is sort of dorm-like, so that she has plenty of people to interact with, maybe even share a communal kitchen. She also said she wouldn't mind having a roommate. Also, she speaks little English.

Does anyone have any ideas? I don't know a lot about the Los Angeles area, so I thought I'd start researching by asking you. I was thinking maybe a bed and breakfast might work--would that have a lot of communal areas and chances for interaction with people? Anyway, I think she needs to be in Beverly Hills, but maybe a nearby neighborhood would work as well?

Any ideas are very much appreciated! Thanks for the help! I know it's kind of a strange question with the issue of wanting others around, but she'll be traveling alone, so getting to know other people would be good.

Beverly Hills is a small fancy community that's sort-of an island within Los Angeles, so you need to include nearby LA neighborhoods in order to improve the odds of finding such a relatively downscale place.

I don't know if you'll have any luck since she only wants one month of accomodation...but take a look at the Westwood area near UCLA. Students are usually looking for roommates. Look at craigslist.org for Westwood offerings, look at dailybruin.com the student paper.

Thanks for the feedback. Anonymous, do you know what some nearby areas are that might be downscale enough to have such accomodations? Sorry I have relatively no knowledge of LA, but since I'm American I think it was assumed I would have lots of insight . (no one in Italy realizes how big America is)

tracy: thanks for the links and ideas. I'm checking them out now.

This is a tough one, but I would contact the Italian Cultural Center in Westwood and they would probably be able to give you some good ideas, since it's right off campus (from UCLA). Their website is iicusa.org Hope that helps.