Scenery:

Lakeshore is in a blighted part of Cincinnati, and is at the nexus of two major highways. The trees do a good job of hiding some of the highway views and noise, and the lake draws attention away from the factory aross the street. When I was sitting on porch, watching ducks on the lake, it was easy to forget that I was in the middle of an urban area. The lake is man-made and kid of cheesy, but a nice distraction.


Management/staff:

Everyone was nice, if a bit inept. I did have a problem with the staff breaking into my apartment a number of times. I never figured out what they were doing. They dropped flyers in my apartment one time, and were fooling with my computer another time. I set up an alarm system that was triggered by someone opening the door. (When the staff triggered it, humorously, management would call me to tell me that "staff in the building had noticed my alarm going off.") Management always denied that the staff was getting into peoples' apartments, but after they triggered the alarm a couple of times, they stopped going in.

The staff did a poor job of performing repairs. When I had water damage in the ceiling, instead of moving my bed, they stood on top of it (nice), and splashed paint all over the bed and an expensive picture above the bed. When I spoke to management, I was told to just scrub the paint off.


Amenities:

The staff also misled me about the features of the apartment I was renting. They showed me one apartment, and told me the layout of the one I would be getting would be equivalent. When I moved in, I noticed the layout was a lot different. Also, the staff didn't mention that the apartments don't have individual heat controls. They use steam heat, and my apartment was really hot in the winter, with no way to turn the heat down. I ended up leaving the windows open a lot to cool the place off.

The apartments use window/wall A/C units. They are very loud, and don't cool evenly, leaving hot patches throughout the apartment. They produce that distinctive smell as well.

The laundry facilities were down in the dingy basement. I didn't like going down there or leaving my clothes unattended in that setting.


Crime:

When I lived at Lakeshore, I didn't see any real crime in person, although we had a lot of thugs coming into our neighborhood from the ghetto in Roselawn. Once I caught some young g's casing cars to break into. When they saw me taking pictures of them, they left. (Management said they didn't want the pictures unless someone reported something missing.) We also had a problem with thugs taking over the pool area in the summer. They would play loud rap music, break bottles on the walkways so that residents would cut their feet, throw firecrackers at each other, and, in general, scared all the residents away from the pool. To their credit, eventually, management drove them out.

I was wary of crime the whole time I lived there, but, thankfully, didn't see much.


Location:

Lakeshore is flanked by ghetto on the west and south, a run-down, working-class town on the north, and a wealthy community to the east. My advice would be to stay out of Roselawn (south), stick to main roads (e.g., Galbraith) going west, and, in general, stay east as much as possible.

During the 2001 ghetto riots, Lakeshore was in the "curfew" zone, but didn't experience any of the race rioting that victimized areas further south. I think everyone was on edge because of the proximity to Roselawn, but thankfully, we weren't attacked.

The complex is only 10 minutes from the Kenwood shopping center, and about 20 minutes from downtown. It's about 15 minutes from the outer suburbs. It's just a few minutes west to I75, or east to I71.

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 11/08/2009
Reading Ohio is not a run-down working class town that the above person states above. Many of my friends live here and they are very classy people. Reading schools do very well if you have young children or young adults going to them. We have Mount Notor Dame here as well for the priviate sector too. Reading Ohio takes pride in there community, and I have been a resident here in Reading for over 40 years now. Now speeking for Lakeshore Apartments, they have taken great strides to make there little community in Reading Ohio a great place to live. Our corporate offices and the owners of the apartments have put the resources in our community to enhance the community that many of us call home. So come on over at the Lakeshore apartments, meet the people and you will see that the resdients are warm people and the staff is friendly. This community stands by its values and does not put up with no nonsence bull-. Proud to Live in Reading ohio, and at Lakeshore Apartments.
From: Anonymous	Date: 11/10/2009
lol at 'ghetto in roselawn', there is no 'ghetto' in roselawn. I invite you to take a stroll in over the rhine, or in winton terrace if you would like to know what the ghetto REALLY looks like. I do agree with you that lakeshore leaves a lot to be desired and that the maintenance staff was completely inept. haha...I'm still chuckling about the ghetto in roselawn. I'll make sure to share that gem with others.

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