Unkept Mausoleum, no groundsmen available outdoors, old dirty flowers not cleaned up, saddest situation of a working cemetery I’ve seen. No pride taken in the way this cemetery looks. This was at 10:25 a.m. on a Friday.

I’m writing this review for my sister who is going through a very difficult time as she has lost her husband almost three weeks ago. She had preplanned funeral services at this facility years ago so that she would not need to stress over arrangements at the passing of her loved one. When she called to make the funeral arrangements, she was informed that she could not be accommodated until the end of July (2 months)! She decided to have the services at Reardon funeral home in Ventura instead. She was charged because she transferred services from Santa Clara even though they could not accommodate her. If she would have waited until the end of July, she would have had to pay an extra $6,000 to keep the body refrigerated! Reardon funeral home did an amazing and beautiful service in one week. My sister is mourning and experienced more emotional distress from this experience with Santa Clara. It appears that this a pattern with this funeral home as they have done this to other families.

It was a horrible experience. Maintenance workers made it a point to accost my wife & I because we were attempting to clean & touch up my mother's gravestone. It had deteriorated so badly that you could no longer read the inscription. & the surrounding gravesites were in really bad shape as well. Some were completely covered with weeds & debris, making it impossible to know where some gravesites were located. The weeds had grown over 2 feet high at the east end of the cemetery. The maintenance crew made it a point to use first an edger. & the following day, they showed up with a tractor grass cutter, making sure to pass me closeup to assure that dirt & debris flew in an effort to destroy the newly painted gravestone. I know had I given them some money, they would have stopped & waited another day to let the paint dry. I had made plans to buy a burial site for my wife & I since both my parents, grandparents, brother & sister are buried at Santa Clara. But after dealing with the cemetery's personnel, the lack of respect & outright hostility they exhibited, I told my loved ones that I don't want a gravesite. I don't want them to be held hostage to any abuse by cemetery personnel. Rather, I will be cremated & ashes thrown into the ocean.