First, a word about myself, so you can relate to the reviewer. I'm a single guy in my early 30s, work as a software engineer, and drive a fine upscale car. I spent 6 years at the apartment complex, and only left because I got a new job far away.

Indian Oaks is a safe, beautiful, quiet place to live at. The 2-story apartment buildings are scattered spaciously and irregularly. The professional landscaping borrows a very pleasant surrounding to the entire complex. It's perhaps the best among the affordable places in Simi Valley.

Despite being very close to the 118 freeway, I never heard any significant road noise, although I didn't live in the apartments facing Cochran Street. That constant humming noise from the cars is definitely not present. Of course no one can guarantee complete silence when you share a building with dozens of others. If they watch TV loud, you can hear that. If you leave your window open, you can hear the neighbor's cell phone ringing. The people who live there, however, are generally intelligent, and they tend to respect the mandatory silence hours.

In the afternoons you can hear children playing outside, sometimes loudly, but that never disturbed me. In fact, I believe it's a pretty safe place for families and young children too. There is at least one tot-lot, and plenty of grass areas to play games. There is a swimming pool (not for serious sports, just for chilling), and a gym at the rental office. The local school is right around the corner, which means fairly heavy traffic at 8am and 4pm.

However, this is not a luxury apartment. The appliances are rather old and beaten down, but they're working. For those who never lived in the Los Angeles area, there is no refrigerator, microwave, washer or drier, although there are several community laundries with plenty of coin machines. You can safely leave your cloths alone there, and the common areas are mostly clean, unless someone before you leaves a mess. They just invested into replacing all the washers and driers, so those are fairly good.

Central heating and air conditioning are present, but loud and not programmable. You can't set it to turn on automatically 15 minutes before you go home. You periodically have to reset the fuse. The wall sockets are all loose. The gas stove works, the dishwasher has issues from time to time, every single drain gets clogged periodically. The water heater is far away and you need to keep the water running for a while to turn hot. There are maintenance people, however, who take care of most issues fairly quickly, even though some of the problems come back later.

I only had two very severe problems during the 6 years. Once a particularly nasty mold issue that smelled like a rotten animal. They cleaned the air ducts, drains and the carpet, and in a few days it went away. The management took it incredibly seriously (no wonder, that's the law). The other problem was a smoker neighbor, and it brought up construction issues with the building. If you live upstairs and someone cooks or smokes under you, and you turn on the A/C, you can basically breathe the same air as them. Fortunately the management tries to help. In the most severe case, a friend of mine who also lived at Indian Oaks complained about smoke and odor, and the management took care of it my moving the smokers to a different unit. They try to group smokers in one bunch, but it's impossible to guarantee that you never smell them at all. You need a little luck with your neighbors. I would never live upstairs again, though -- I'd rather listen to the neighbors walk above me.

Management is nice in general. They definitely take health issues very seriously, and try to fix smaller problems as well. Yes, rent is going up as much as permitted by law, but that's pretty common in California. It's not cheap to live there, but it's well worth it, compared to other neighborhoods. You pay all the utilities, water, and garbage, on top of the rent. They were reasonable with paying back the security deposit in my case.

There is one assigned covered parking, no garage though. Second cars don't get an assigned spot, they have to park at the uncovered guest spots. It's difficult to find guest parking on Friday and Saturday night, but parking is adequate otherwise. If your spouse comes home early, just take an unassigned spot, so you can park the other car late night at the assigned one. My car was never broken into, I got tiny scratches and dents once or twice. It's not as good as your own garage, but I always felt my expensive car was in reasonable safety.

Overall, I had a good experience. It depends on your expectations. If you're coming from outside of California, it's overpriced, old and small, but safe. If luxury is what you're after, you will be disappointed. I wish the A/C was programmable.

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