We moved into Lake Cove apartments in the late summer of 2001 and left in late summer of 2003. Yes, this is how bad I hate the place. 5 years later, I am still bitter.

The day we moved in, we did our apartment inspection. I was very disappointed. The particleboard cabinets were sagging and there was water damage under EVERY sink to the point that the particleboard was nearly rotted through. The carpet was in so so condition. One of the screens on the windows was broken like someone had been prying on it. (We were in a ground floor apartment) I got my first introduction to house centipedes....those horrid grey things that literally blow their legs off in self defense when you spray them with bug spray. They blended in OH so nicely with their grey coloring on our grey carpet. Their bites are excrutiating. I find out that they hang out in damp, cool places. That should have been my first clue right there. This was all on our first day there.

On our first morning there, we awoke to find our truck broken into. The driver's window broken, the dashboard ripped off, our aftermarket cd player/radio ripped out and vandalism with everything rummaged through. Welcome to the damn neighborhood.

And "hood" is exactly what I'd call it.

Crappy parking. An extra $40 a month if you want a teeny garage stall. An extra $20 a month if you want to park under the parking ramp so the vandals can break into your vehicle with less chance of being seen. Parking an entire complex away from your complex just so you can find a place to park. Thugs running around the entire complex at all hours of the day and night. I'm just thankful we didn't have our kids at that point in our lives. I would have been terrified to raise them there. We were in unit 105 of our apartment, which shares a wall with the laundry room. Let's just say that the walls and floors/ceilings are damn thin in these buildings. One night, at about 2 am, I could hear a bunch of kids in the laundry room. Screwing around. Literally. I called the police. Later, the officer explained to me that it was a bunch of junior high girls lined up in the laundry room giving junior high boys oral sex. Niiiiiiiiice. 10 kids, 5 of each, lined up in my damn laundry room getting each other off. It was also nice to try and get in to do laundry in there. 1 washer and 1 dryer for SIX UNITS to share. Try getting your laundry done at any hour other than 2 am. I can't tell how many times I didn't get in there just the second the washer finished to hurry up and get another load in, or else some moron would throw my wet clothes on the floor and jump in line. I was also thrilled on several occasions to see used condoms in the trash and was VERY thrilled to find homemade porn videos in the trash cans. Nothing like seeing "my girlfriend peeing on my roomate" labels to really make you warm up to living somewhere.

Our garbage disposal clogged up and our sink was plugged with filthy, dirty, used dishwater. It took them FOUR DAYS to come and fix it. The dishwasher was crap and didn't even clean the dishes you put into it. In fact, I'm sure if I would have loaded it with clean dishes that they would have come out dirty. The ceiling above our shower had major water damage and the drywall was falling off onto our heads as we'd shower. The shelfs in our master closet fell off the wall and we had to jerry rig them back up ourselves because we could never get anyone in to fix them. The tile in the back bathroom looked like it had been put down by a drunken blind man.

And so much for secure entrances. You may need a key to get in, and they may have intercoms, but the system is easy to circumvent. Just about every morning when I would leave for work at 5:30 am, the doors would be propped open with rugs so that ANYONE could get into the buildings. Some "secure" environment.

People would smoke in the building all the time. Whether it was cigarettes or dope, you could always smell it. Kids were setting fire alarms off all the time. One time, the alarms went off, yet again. And I ignored them. Until I heard a lot of screaming in the halls. Went out and all I could smell was smoke. Grabbed what stuff I could and ran to the parking ramp where my vehicle was parked. From there, I could see unit 306 fully engulfed in flames. It was a regular party apartment in our unit. Apparently, some moron had left a cigarette smoldering in the couch. That unit was totally gutted and there was water damage on every single floor under it. We only had smoke damage in our unit and slight water damage on our shared wall. We were allowed back in the apartments once the fire was out, but it was hard to breathe. It was a full two weeks before they started tearing out the remains of the apartment upstairs. In the meantime. Mold damage appeared in several of the until where water had run down the walls. Nothing was ever done to fix ours. I found out I was pregnant shortly prior to the fire. Once they gutted the building and started fixing things up, there was a very strong chemical odor that was making us sick. My Doctor advised us to get out of there. Lake Cove refused to give us a different unit and wouldn't pay for us to stay elsewhere until the damage was fixed. I had no choice but be subjected to horrible chemical fumes until we could find another place to live. I wound up miscarrying at 14 weeks. I hold Lake Cove Village fully responsible as my pregnancy was healthy up until that time.

After the fire, we tried to break out of our lease 2 months early so we could move somewhere else. They refused, even though we had water damage, smoke inhalation and were exposed to God knows WHAT chemicals. We ended up paying for our last 2 months of rent even though we moved out of that death trap early due to THEIR problems and negligence.

Between the high crime rate, domestics, parties, geese shitting all over, lack of maintenance, shoddy units and terrible staff, I wouldn't recommend this place to anyone. There were prospective tenants in there the day that I dropped our keys off. I made sure to share the experience we had so they wouldn't rent there as well. They were thankful that I let them know. To top it off, we were charged a new carpet fee, even though our carpet was in the same condition the day we moved in as the day we moved out. We were also charged several hundred in early termination fees even though we still had to pay our last two months rent.

Oh, yes. Being raped by Lake Cove Village certainly made my MN living experience wonderful. I'm thankful to have left the ghetto behind. I truly feel sorry for any normal people who unknowingly make the decision to live there. Unless you like the ghetto living experience, avoid this place at all costs. There is a reason the rent is affordable. And all the extra patrol by police should be a clue as to what you're getting into.

User Responses
From: zachhart12	Date: 06/18/2008
lmao...yeah I moved into Pearlwood Estates just up the road before the 494 bridge on 52nd street. My parents and I looked at Lake Cove and it looked like a -------- to us so we never rented there...Just the mere fact of having the circle...with everyones apartment across from yours..yeah, bad design. That's inviting noise pollution right there. Pearlwood is pretty nice. I haven't had one noise complaint yet, there are plenty of washers and dryers...well, sorta.

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