Monterey Lakes Apartments

DO NOT MOVE IN HERE UNLESS YOU’RE DESPERATE! — I have lived in many apartments in the area — and this by far has been the worst! When you first meet the office ladies they are a bunch of sweethearts — just move in, and you’ll see how truly rude and sarcastic they are! We’ve had issues with our garbage disposal, AC, bathroom tubs and sinks and for each thing it’s taken a week or longer to get fixed, (with multiple phone calls to them). They’re suppose to have 2 jacuzzis… Where are they? I don’t see them anywhere… When we moved in, the carpet looked very old and patchy, lifting up from Up against the walls, now it’s falling apart more and I’m sure they’re going to blame us for it. They don’t hesitate to take your money, but they take forever to come take care of needs — they have these wooden decks that have been broken for God knows how long, and still not fixed. I’ve had multiple conversations with tenats that have lived there longer and they tell me how nice it USED to be. Ever since a new person bought the apts it’s gone downhill… If I pay so much for rent, I expect the property and my current home to show for it. Can’t wait till my lease is up!

02/​22/​2015 — Just went to the apartment gym, pitiful, they have a room that is almost empty with three things and only the walker works, what a dump for how much they charge for rent, I am working hard to get the heck out of here, rent for a 3 bedroom for me in now getting close to 1200 dollars. The maintenance staff is doing their job but the company they work for is pitiful. The pool has bird feathers covering the whole pool, the water drains are not kept cleaned resulting in flooding, they cant even match up the correct shade of paint color when they want to touch up, it’s pitiful, oh and also the roof gutters are never cleaned and TREES are growing out of the gutters. I got pictures of all of this and i’m trying to figure out how to post the pictures. I still live here only because its close to work, but this place is a dump for the money, appliances outdated, tons of bad things here, do NOT rent here, go somewhere else. I got pics of this dump for the money, I am trying to post the pics of this DUMP.

If you include St. Petersburg, I’ve lived in three different apartment complexes in the area and this one stands out for its cleanliness and responsive staff. I lived here from July 2010 — June 2011 and am moving out of the area otherwise I’d probably stay another year.
During my one year stay, I think I found a grand total of 2 cockroaches (in my experience with FL this is a surprisingly low number), and no other bugs or issues to speak of.
The staff in the main office comes across as kind-​of fake and defensive, but they get stuff done which is the important part! Any time I needed anything done I would just talk to the front office and within a day one of the maintenance staff would be there fixing whatever it was. Speaking of, the guy who seems to be the main groundskeeper is super friendly/​helpful and is a huge asset to the community.
Pros:
TV/​Cable is included with the rent
Full size washer and dryers included in even the smallest apartments
Clean
Responsive maintenance staff
Pretty decent prices
Several small but nice pools
Tennis court
Cons:
The area is really boring (there is very little to do in the Largo area)
You have to take your trash to an on-​site dumpster
They planned to jack up the rent by 6% after the one year lease was set to expire