Lark Baton Rouge, baton-rouge-la

We just moved our daughter in yesterday and what I saw was horrible. We’re out of state so this was our first time seeing this place in person & the online photos make the place seem really nice but that’s not what we saw in person. The trash was piled up and scattered everywhere in the “trash area”. The one way in and out is dangerous as cars were speeding around the corner from the parking garage. The hallways smelled and didn’t feel ventilated. We thought no pets were allowed except for service animals but we saw a few dogs in the hallway & they were no service dogs. My husband is a veteran so we’re familiar with what a service animal is. To make matters worse, they lost power last night and then this morning there was flooding on her floor. I understand this is college student living but these conditions are not acceptable for them.

Beware! And make sure that you walk the entire facility before you sign a lease and move in! The hallways are nasty full of feces. They don’t clean there’s trash lingering all over the place and the parking lot smells like a dumpster! Don’t let these nice online photos confuse you. My daughter was never able to enjoy the pool because it was so nasty. The lazy pool was green the entire three years she lived there. The gym is full of old equipment that does not work and it’s filthy! We are from the DMV and my daughter moved into THe Lark while she attended LSU the last 3 years of her academic school years. The building itself has always been nasty. However, I was not the one to go see the apartment or the building. When my daughter picked this apartment complex to move into, she only focused on the model apartment that they showed her and given the fact that her other friends were going to move there because it was more affordable, she just ended up picking this apartment complex. From the moment I helped her move-in I saw the nastiness in the building and throughout the parking garage, however, it was already too late. I had already traveled out there, lease was signed and because we were so far and she started school the next day, we just moved forward but complained about everything! The apartment was turned in dirty, They had to bring a new mattress because the one that was in her room was broken, Toilet seat was broken, Bathtub was dirty, air ventilations filthy, The refrigerator made this weird noise, and there was just so much going on. I spent the first night cleaning the entire apartment as well as my daughter‘s room and bathroom. Throughout the three years that she lived there, she never told me about the horror stories that she went through just to not worry me. Thankfully, she has moved out and graduated from school. I made the apartment manager come and do a walk-through with my daughter before she turned in her keys (mind you, we ended up just paying the last two months and turned I the keys so we can be done with the) and now these people have the audacity to charge for some “rug cleaning” of her room (which is bs because she never even went into her room with her shoes on and she is very well organized) when they didn’t even turn in the apt clean! None-the-less, this negative review was well overdue. Parents! Make sure u go yourself, you don't need to believe me, soon as you walk into the building itself (not the leasing office, they keep that nice and tidy to foul new residents) you will see! Don’t let the fresh paint they do on the outside of the building every year fool you! Its all a damn lie.

If I could leave 0 stars, I absolutely would. I lived at Lark from August 2025 to July 2026, and this was, without question, the worst living experience of my life. This property is unsafe, unprofessional, poorly managed, and completely unwilling to hold residents accountable for violating the lease. If you value your safety, your sanity, or your money, DO NOT LIVE HERE. Before we even moved in, management created a nightmare. My roommate, another friend, and I signed a 4-bedroom, 4-bathroom lease with the intention of splitting the cost of the fourth bedroom so it would remain vacant. One week before move-in, I called just to confirm everything was set. That’s when I found out they had deleted one of our leases without telling us and separated our group. Every person involved was told something different, and it took countless phone calls and the threat of legal action before they finally fixed their mistake. Had I not called, they never would have informed us. The “solution” was forcing us to live with a random roommate—a 25-year-old non-student while the rest of us were 19-year-old full-time college students. That roommate smoked marijuana inside the apartment multiple times a day, had a boyfriend who attempted to break into our apartment on multiple occasions, and even threatened to physically harm us. We reported everything to management, filed police reports, and even submitted documentation to corporate HR. Nothing was done. We were left to live in fear until she eventually transferred. As if that wasn’t enough, the apartment itself was infested with roaches, rats, gnats, ants, and other pests for months. Living conditions were disgusting. Then management placed another random roommate with us. She repeatedly failed to pay rent on time but somehow faced no consequences. She also left marijuana lying around the apartment, which my dog ate. I had to rush my dog to the emergency vet to have her stomach pumped. Again, management did nothing. Instead, this roommate falsely accused me of feeding my own dog marijuana and even accused me of committing a hate crime. Rather than remaining professional, employees at the front desk participated in the gossip instead of addressing the situation appropriately. Throughout the entire year, management consistently showed they have no interest in enforcing their own lease agreements. Both random roommates openly smoked inside the apartment every single day. The smell hit you the second you walked through the front door. Management witnessed it firsthand and still refused to act. The property itself is also completely unacceptable: * Building doors are constantly unlocked, allowing anyone to walk inside. * The parking garage door is almost never closed. * Mail is constantly lost or stolen. * Residents’ tires are frequently slashed. * Elevators are always broken. * Maintenance requests go ignored or take forever to be completed. The biggest issue isn’t even the building—it’s the management. Every legitimate concern was ignored. Every report was brushed aside. Every lease violation was tolerated unless it inconvenienced them. This complex made it abundantly clear that your safety, your property, your pets, and your concerns are not a priority. There are countless apartment complexes in Baton Rouge. Choose literally anywhere else. Living at Lark was an exhausting, stressful, and miserable experience that I would never wish on anyone.

I spent a year here and I have never been so relieved to hand over a set of keys. Let's start with the money, because that's where they're most creative. They charged me for breaking a lease I did not break. Next they force you to pay rent, utilities, and other expenses on different days so you pay their $19 convince fee several times a month. I had to fight with them so they'd combine the bill Then they invented a massive cleaning fee because I left some hair in a sink. Hair. In a sink. In an apartment I paid to live in for twelve months. If they applied even a fraction of that scrutiny to their own building, the hallways wouldn't smell like a kennel. And they do. Residents are allowed to let their dogs urinate and defecate in the hallways and it sits there for days. Days. You walk to your own front door holding your breath. Nobody cleans it, nobody enforces anything, and nobody at the office seems to find this remarkable. Now the part that should actually worry you: my car was hit in the parking lot, management knew about it, and said nothing. I found out a week later (from an individual who saw it happen and asked whether the office had ever bothered to contact me.) They had the information and chose to sit on it while I drove around with damage I didn't know existed. That's consistent with how they treat security generally, which is to say they don't. The building entrances didn't lock. Anyone — resident, delivery driver, random person off the street at 3 a.m. — could walk right in. The parking garage gate was broken the entire time I lived there and hung permanently open. They will, however, find the energy to tow your car over nothing. Suddenly the rules matter, suddenly someone is paying attention, suddenly there's urgency. But the car parked in the access aisle handicap spot? Crickets. Guest and resident spots aren't marked so honestly it's park at your own risk. The enforcement is not about safety or fairness. It's about which direction the money flows. The rest is just the ambient misery: elevators that worked maybe half the time, so every morning was a coin flip between a normal commute and five flights of stairs. Walls so thin you know your neighbors' business whether you want to or not. A pool too filthy to get into. This place takes your money aggressively and does its job reluctantly. Management is unresponsive until there's a fee to collect. Do not sign here. Whatever you think you're saving, you are paying for it in smells, stress, and stolen time.

When I moved in July of 2023. The unit I had moved into had not been cleaned at all. The drink from the last tenants had still been on the counter. Shortly after my car and multiple other students was towed from the garage due to not having parking stickers we were not instructed to pick up. The community was very loud, people who didn’t stay could easily get access and the hallways always had dog pee/poo. Not to mention the a/c kept going out Fast forward to feb 2025 the a/c had stopped working again. As my roommate and I were putting in work orders management would cancel it. In march we were told they had ordered the part. By April (going on 2 months with no A/C), management stated they were still waiting on the part at this point summer heat had been extreme. During this time I expressed breaking my lease or moving out due to inhabitable conditions, my lease was due to end in July. Managed said that I would have to find someone who was a student that was willing to take over my lease because they could not afford any financial adjustments right (due to already evicting majority of the building.) Why would anyone in their right mind move into an apartment with no A/C?? By May 2025, the air in the unit had still not been working so I decided to move out. After move out and once again explaining to management my decisions, they still told me I could not break my lease and tried to offer me a vacant apartment AFTER I had completed vacated the premises. The complex also installed a window unit in the LIVING ROOM, AFTER I had vacated the premises. Claiming that the unit had been installed since April which was very false. I was not only billed for the remaining balance of my lease, but I was also billed over 1k in damages I did not create. Damages that the apartment came in the day I moved in. For example: I was billed for a rusty air vent on the ceiling that is obviously could not have been caused by a person. Do not lease here! Putting any tenant through 3 months of no A/C in the summer heat is not okay. Currently working on a law suit!