An unfinished concrete frame at the corner of Romaine Street and North Spaulding Avenue has a new set of residents, and they aren't paying rent.
A pack of up to six urban coyotes has claimed an abandoned West Hollywood construction site as their personal luxury den. Locals have taken to calling the derelict multi-unit property the "coyote condo." While wildlife moving into city spaces isn't entirely new for Southern California, watching wild canids lounge on second-story balconies and howl into the night sky highlights a deeper urban planning failure.
You hear them right around 10 or 11 o'clock every single night. The howls echo across the pavement, splitting opinions right down the middle. Some neighbors find it wild and strangely grounding, a raw reminder of nature living alongside concrete. Others are terrified to walk their dogs down the block, tired of looking up and seeing a wild animal staring right back down from a balcony.
The Anatomy of a Ghost Building
The real story here isn't just about cute or scary wild animals adapting to city life. It's about what happens when real estate projects stall out and rot for years.
This specific project at Spaulding and Romaine was supposed to be a four-story, 22-unit residential condominium complex. Ground broke years ago, but funding dried up. The developers walked away, leaving behind water-damaged wood frames, open scaffolding, and a massive safety hazard.
For a long time, unhoused individuals sought shelter in the skeleton structure. After local enforcement cleared out those makeshift camps, the space sat wide open again. Nature hates a vacuum. Wildlife moved in to fill the empty footprint.
When you leave a multi-story building half-built for nearly half a decade, you basically hand wild animals an elevated fortress. It offers shade, high vantage points to spot prey, protection from foot traffic, and complete structural isolation.
Why Los Angeles Is Seeing More Coyotes Right Now
Urban wildlife sightings aren't happening in a vacuum. State wildlife officials note that coyote encounters have climbed steadily across Los Angeles County.
Several distinct factors drive this trend:
- Warmer weather patterns starting earlier in the year push animals to look for new territory and water sources.
- Massive wildfires in recent years, including the devastating Eaton and Palisades fires, destroyed thousands of acres of natural habitat. Displaced wildlife naturally trickles down into urban zones.
- Careless waste management and accessible pet food in dense neighborhoods provide easy calories.
Coyotes are remarkably smart opportunists. They don't need a national park to thrive; they just need an oversight gap in city infrastructure.
The Neighborhood Divide
Talk to anyone living within a two-block radius of the Romaine Street site, and you will get a wildly different reaction depending on who you ask.
Take Cindy Sorley, a nearby resident who notes she has walked out of her apartment to find half a dozen coyotes lingering right around her parked car. It's jarring. People shouldn't have to navigate a pack of wild predators just to get to their grocery bags.
Conversely, other locals lean into the bizarre reality of it. Paul Manganello told reporters that the nightly chorus reminds him he shares a planet with actual wildlife.
Yet, safety trumps novelty. Residents are actively avoiding the perimeter when walking smaller pets or children. The structural integrity of the abandoned building itself is questionable after sitting exposed to weather elements for years, making the site a double threat of biological and physical hazards.
What Needs to Happen Next
Complaining on social media won't solve an occupancy crisis driven by wild animals and stalled development. City officials and municipal authorities face a clear test here.
First, the city of West Hollywood needs to enforce emergency codes on the property owners. If developers sit on dead parcels for years while letting them turn into wildlife preserves or eyesores, heavy fines must follow. Leaving multi-million dollar construction scars open indefinitely invites liability.
Second, animal control and urban wildlife specialists must step up coordinated management plans. West Hollywood has maintained a Coyote Management and Coexistence Plan since 2018, but passive public education campaigns do little when a breeding pack sets up an urban fortress in a literal apartment building.
If you live in an area experiencing a surge in urban wildlife encounters, don't leave pet food outside, secure your trash bins in locking containers, and keep small dogs on short leashes after dark.
Stop treating urban wildlife invasions as a cute photo opportunity for social media. Hold property developers accountable for abandoned concrete blocks before the local wildlife population decides they own the deed.
