The Lakes Apartments

We scoured northwest Indy looking for an apartment complex to begin our growing family, with our first little one already on the way, and we finally settled on the Lakes apartments. The area seemed quiet, clean, and relatively inexpensive. What isn't visible, however, is just how incredible the management team here is.

From the first time we contacted the Lakes to now, 8 months into our first year here, we've received nothing but warmth and support from Jessie, Angie, and Saymah. They're... competent, and they truly care. We take walks to the clubhouse once or twice a week (or more often) to grab a snack and say hi, and it's so fun to watch them interact and develop a relationship with our baby boy. Whenever we've had concerns, we've felt comfortable reaching out to them for help, and we witness them do everything they can to help us out. Lastly, the maintenance team is top notch- they're very responsive, friendly, and dependable. We highly recommend joining the Lakes community! Lee mas

I have lived in this community for three years and decided not to renew this year. Mostly because of the 8-12 people in a three bedroom apartment diagonal from me (which I am fairly certain violate leasing conditions but I am by no means the expert). They have four kids that scream day and night, at all times and at all hours and not within the reasonable expectations of what you would expect from smaller children. While there is not much to be done about noisy neighbors, unless you have... overpacked apartments and lack of accountability from management. The conditions on the property have steadily declined as well. Sprinklers are broke. There is constant goose poop everywhere (which, to be fair, they are trying to mitigate with little success) and crime has increased. You cannot have a nice car and expect not to get rear ended, side swiped or dented unless you have a parking garage space. There is mold on the buildings and I suspect within. There are animals that are crawling under the buildings and you can see have eaten into the gutter. While the area is great and overall I feel that the apartments are pretty well ventilated from noise, the condition of these apartments, how old they are and what they are asking as they continue to raise the rates are unreasonable. They do not require vaccination records for dogs nor do they treat the yards for fleas and ticks, so if you have an animal be sure to keep them updated. I also recommend a second floor apartment as I almost never hear my neighbor who actually lives below me, just the screaming kids below and across the way. Lee mas

This place will probably seem great if you come to visit. Don't believe the hype. You wouldn't see some of the bad things I mention below until you move in. To be fair, there are some positives to The Lakes (see bottom), but the bad outweighs the good.

The Bad:
1) You can hear ALL of your neighbors. We live on the second floor and can hear our downstairs neighbor's TV every day. We've confirmed that it's not because he's got the volume way up, the walls are just that paper thin. We can also... hear the neighbors through our kitchen and bathroom.
2) Everything is old and dated for the prices that you pay. The air conditioning has gone out multiple times in the middle of the summer. When it is running, it runs non-stop due to the poor insulation. Cabinets are cheap and cabinet doors are naturally starting to sag from the hinges.
3) There was an apartment fire in July 2019. We believe we were told it was due to faulty wiring in the building, or a problem with the circuit breaker. To our knowledge, none of the other buildings were checked, and if they were, we were not notified (which would have given us peace of mind).
4) Ants have gotten in through our exterior walls twice. We've also found a cockroach in the apartment once (which the complex confirmed was a cockroach through their pest control people).
5) Parking can be a nightmare if you arrive home late from work, depending on which building you live in.
6) There are no sidewalks in the neighborhood. When taking our dog on walks, we've almost been hit multiple times by cars coming around a curve because there is nowhere to walk except the street. There is a grass field to take your dog to, but it still requires walking in the street around a curve to get to.

The Good;
1) Neighborhood seems safe. We haven't noticed any crime in the complex.
2) Pool and workout facilities are nice.
3) Maintenance staff responds quickly (I know because I've had to put in too many maintenance requests) and all of the maintenance guys are extremely nice and friendly.
4) Communication regarding the community is pretty good. For example, when they re-paved the complex, we received plenty of notice and info regarding what areas would be worked on and when. Lee mas

I lived at The Lakes this past year and had great difficulties with the management when it came time for me to move. The apartments are QUITE run down, the issues I experienced in my short time there included my garbage disposal clogging, shower clogging, shower leaking all over my bathroom floor, closet door literally falling off the hinges (thank god it didn't hit me or my small dog!!!), AND my furnace breaking twice during the winter months. While all of my issues were taken care of thanks to... the excellent maintenance staff (they are exempt from this criticism), it was still quite a hassle to experience such frequent issues with the apartment. Shortly before moving I was out of town from Thursday evening through Sunday morning for a long weekend - 84 hours to be exact, and when I came back I realized my fridge had completely stopped working. A bottle of dressing had gotten so warm and fermented that it exploded inside my fridge, ruining my Britta water pitcher, in addition to at least losing $50.00 worth of food that had spoiled due to the warm temperatures.

When I brought the issue of the fridge to management, they claimed they were not responsible due to "not being made aware of the issue in a timely manner." Also, because I didn't make them aware of my absence (again, Thursday-Sunday), they would not reimburse me for any of the cost of property/food lost - not to mention the 3 hours I spent cleaning the disgusting mess. Lastly, upon trying to disconnect my electricity, one of the leasing agents was extremely difficult and rude.

I would HIGHLY discourage anyone from moving to this location. The management is very poor and unprofessional. Lee mas

The area is excellent, it has many facilities nearby and you can get everything in a few miles, the administration staff is very attentive and tries to solve the number of times that the problems that arise in the apartment are necessary, however, they have a policy of not attending maintenance calls on weekends unless it is an emergency and as my apartment was two bathrooms that one did not work was not an emergency, and several times the toilet was blocked, on two or three occasions it was a... Friday and I had to wait until Monday or Tuesday for maintenance to come to solve in 5 minutes. Actually it seems a problem of the infrastructure because I had to buy a tool to solve myself for the amount of events that occurs. The shower and the sinks of the bathrooms also happen to them the same thing and the dishwasher also happened once.

At first I had problems with insects, but after several fumigations this was solved or winter helped me.

My daughter loved the court, but we stopped using it because the dogs run free inside it, I consider this nice but I did not want my girl to fall down with something unpleasant. Lee mas