I moved into these apartments a few months ago at the start of the 2022 school year, and realized most of the reviews on here were past problems or issues. Most of them must have been resolved or fixed by the new management that has taken over, which I believe happened recently. Most reviews on here are a few years old, and from my experience they are no longer relevant. I've enjoyed living here a lot and same goes for my roommates. Pretty sure it's all mostly students living here, and their roommate matching system is also nice, or you can share a place with any friends of your choice. Samantha, who is on staff, has been super helpful with things like helping me finalize a lease and getting the roommates I wanted. Her and the rest of the staff are all super nice and helpful, they also respond quick to any questions or things like maintenance requests. There is a Cyride station right out front that takes you to campus in like 10 minutes, I use it everyday it's free for students and super easy to use. It's also pretty close to the moonlight express route which goes until 2:30am on the weekends. You can also park your car right outside of your building and there is never issues with the parking lot being to full, I even have friends over who park here all the time. Sometimes we can be loud but I have noticed the walls are pretty thick because you can't hear much from your neighbors, which all of mine are cool anyway. I would also say their rent is fairly cheap for what you get, the apartments are decently nice but have tons of space. I'm in the 4x2 and the kitchen and living room are pretty big, also good size bedrooms and bathrooms. I suggest checking The Madison out, I would get out of the dorms, this is much cheaper and way better! read more

When we moved in the apartment was not clean at all, mold in 2/3 bathrooms and the ceiling fan in one room was falling out of the ceiling. They take days to plow the lot when it snows. Maintenance has locked us out of rooms and have let our cats out by just leaving doors open. It took them months to "fix" our stove and didnt even fix it. The management is incredibly incompetent and doesn't do anything when there are issues. They are charging over $3,000 in damages and cleaning charges when there is no way the damages are that much. They didnt give an itemized receipt for damages either. Utilities are not done through the city and they overcharge you, my 3 bed Utilities were around 400 a month even when we were gone. They come into your apartment without any warning and do things without your permission. The pool was open a total of 2 months the entire 2 years i lived there. The windows dont close tight and the screens dont stay on the windows. My AC was broken more than it worked and their solution was a window unit which makes the already high utilities higher. The smoke alarms would go off even if we weren't cooking or in the kitchen at all. Overall just dont live here, they charge way too much and I've never known anyone who has enjoyed living here. I really hope people stop renting here. read more

This place is very poorly managed and maintained. There is probably one girl on staff who is kind and helpful to tenants. When I moved in my key didn't work and the employee who helped me seems annoyed and was very rude. It looks nothing like the model unit. The apartment itself is disgusting upon move-in. It is dirty and EVERYTHING is broken. There were about 20 dead flies on my floor when I moved in. Our dishwasher does not clean any dishes. There are marks all over the walls. The toilets all run unless you flush it a certain way. There is mold in our unit. If you submit a maintenance request, they usually ignore it and mark it as complete. My roommates and I all cried when we first walked in. They also lie to you when you are touring. The terrible quality blinds break EASILY and then you will get charged for them. Don't mount anything on the walls or you will get charged for it. The stove tops are slanted. Absolutely NOTHING had been cleaned or touched since the last tenants moved out, which means everything is disgusting and filthy. Every day for the first 2 months we have found something new that is broken. The washer/dryers ruin clothes and are very musty/mildewy. The walls are incredibly thin. It feels unsafe here because there are no locks on the building doors. They tell you utilities will be around $20 a month when they are over $100 per person(even in the summer). They take the entire building's utilities and divide them among everyone. They also lie about how many units they have left to press you to sign. There is a strange man who walks around the complex shouting racial slurs and yelling "f you" while flipping you off. The tanning bed is always broken along with the treadmills. The hot tub and pool are disgusting and never open. If you ask they always say it's a #1 priority; however, it never changes. I will NEVER be living here again. Horrible price for the conditions of these apartments and the crazy utility bills every month. If I could give a negative star rating this place would be negative 5 stars. read more

I WOULD HIGHLY ADVISE NOT LIVING HERE!! If I could rate 0 or negative I would do so!!! The city of ames had evacuated more than 60 apartments due to unsafe furnaces. (Someone messed up big time but its being shushed under the rug and no one wants to own up) We still do not have more information other than a part was broken (fuse limit bypass switch) when this part is broken it is known to release carbon monoxide! Oh yeah, none of the rooms in our apartment have carbon monoxide detectors. I read online that the state of Iowa requires them:)) The way Allison Larson and her team handled this was unprofessional, irresponsible, and unacceptable. They have yet to comment on this other than saying what was broken. They have refused to acknowledge any risk or harm me and 200+ other residents were put through. I have in email writing that they told me my health should not have been effected. I trusted them and did not get tested, and now we know that the broken part releases Carbon monoxide, but it is now too late to be tested as the test should have been done immediately. DO NOT TRUST THEM!!! The flow of information and communication was non existent. It took weeks of time to get this information. All while I was in a huge panic from wondering if my personal health was affected. Anytime I had questions, the front desk people or people answering the phone said to contact Allison Larson as she had the information. However Allison was and still is conveniently "working from home for the foreseeable future" so the only way to contact is through email However it takes days to respond, and her "answers" are very vague and not helpful. I have asked for a contact for the company that owns the madison. I am pretty sure it is the (PEP Investment Operations, a division of Pierce Education Properties) however Allison has yet to acknowledge this request (from 5 business days ago) nor has she provided any further information. I have asked her to comment if I was at risk for exposure or danger from the carbon monoxide and she has yet to comment on this either! It is morally and ethically incorrect to withhold this information as it deals with my personal health. The weather is currently in single digits and next week it is expected to go negative. The madison has told me that my time is up at the hotel, and to move back into apartment, even though the heater is still broken!! They said they would provide with heaters, but this is all just to save themselves money. It will literally be negative degrees next week and they are having me go back??! I understand the situation was inconvenient for everyone involved, but the lack of empathy, communication or any emotions at all is very concerning. Had I known about this before, I would have never leased here... In conclusion: PLEASE DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND DONT LEASE FROM HERE. YOU REALLY GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR!!! read more

This place is a joke, I'll start with the grass not being maintained throughout the entire complex. They charge way to much to even live there and when I moved in they didn't give me any access key or code for the pool or the gym. Poorly ran facility, they tried to cash my check twice to get more money out of me (which is illegal). My lease was up in the end of July and they are trying to charge me with August rent! If I could give this place 0 stars I would! Do not live here this place is so bad and will try to get a lot of extra money out of its residents! Also forgot to mention the AC unit worked about 15% of the time so if you do find yourself living here (which I wouldn't recommend) during the summer hopefully you enjoy your room being hot as hell read more

Lamest and most pathetic place to live in Ames. If you ever feel like you're not stressed enough in life kindly head over to the Madison and sign a lease. I bet there's space! The Madison has been terrible since my currently 27 year old Supervisor lived there. I'm sent a bill for payment and when I proceed to pay it they have locked me out of my account?? If you see a pool in those lease pictures kindly know it's all for show as if you happen to not be there when that pool is open for the two days in your lease term you better just go swim at state gym. The Madison is cheap and because it is cheap you will realize where there shortcomings come from. The corporation that deals with the Madison is the most non sensible and most incompetent corporation I've dealt with in time. Yall are realllllllyyyy lame. The only reason I'm giving one star is because I actually had a roof over my head the structural integrity of the building is phenomenal. How do you have city of Ames coming to inspect the building and you come to fix the issues a day before the inspection is due? Sketch asf if you ask me. The Madison is like an African government ask for money never get anything done and act like they ain't the problem we are. The security is whack as ever the front door to my building was being redone for a good few months like?!?! Far as ever from school if you're taking the bus and no buses pass there on the weekend just an fyi. Didn't live there for the month of January cause the heaters were not functioning and still got charged rent?!?!?! When I called the office they said that the corporation doesn't want to hear anymore complaints about that issue???? The land that the Madison is on needs to be changed to like a play ground or something. Something that can better the community. read more

I highly DO NOT recommend living at The Madison. When we moved in the unit was dirty and there were multiple issues with the amenities. We didn't have hot water for the first two weeks, our washer and dryer was broken for weeks, and our kitchen sink sprayed everywhere. We always made sure to put in maintance requests in a timely manner but sometimes it took days or weeks to get a response from management. When we found mold growing in our vents and on the wall we went into the office to express our concerns. Allison Larson questioned the legitimacy of our mold tests but refused to have anyone test it on her behalf. After a few email chains back and forth she refused to continue talking to my roomates and I. Not to mention they overcharge utilities every month that have to be reversed, sometimes after the day rent is due resulting in a late fee. The Madison claims there in no way to break the lease, overall a very disappointing and frustrating experience. read more

The Madison Apartments - Apartments Near Me - Ames, Iowa

If I could give this place zero stars, I would. This is the worst appartment complex in Ames. It was dirty when we moved in. The heat was out for nearly two months during the winter, and then they told us there was a gas leak in our building after it already happened. Moving out, they had the audacity to charge me $700 in fees to clean a bathroom that came to me dirty. They also charged me $250 for paint because I forgot to take a couple of command hooks off the wall. Management is awful there. The last two months of my lease none of my roommates even lived in the apartment and we still received a $200 utility bill each. They blame everything on "corporate" and the lady who runs the place is incompetent. She will pull every kind of charge out of her ass just so she can just so she can sit on her ass in air conditioning all day and not do anything. It's a predatory apartment complex. They know college students don't have the time to contest these lease violations or the money to pay for a lawyer. Do yourself a favor and never live here. read more

HIGHLY RECOMMEND YOU DO NOT LIVE HERE! When we first moved in, we didn't have hot water for about a month before it was fixed, the faucet sprayed all over our kitchen for a couple weeks, our dryer was broke for a month before it was replaced, and we also have mold growing in the walls, under the carpet, and through our vents. We took a mold test and when we told management, they sent maintenance to tell us that the mold was just dust and our test was inaccurate. We sent our mold test to the lab and came back with three different types of mold, two which are toxic. When we sent the results, they stuck a tube up our vents and sucked whatever was in there out, leaving a mess all over our floor/beds. The mold problem never was properly fixed in a safe manner and the manager won't let us out of our lease that we've been trying to get out of for months. Now, over 90 furnaces are broken in this complex and are getting different answers on whether our apartment is safe or not. Management has made all of this very difficult, and won't respond to most of the emails we send. If we go down to the office, the manager is never there and we end up getting nowhere. Overall do not recommend staying here, there are too many problems with this place. read more

I would NOT recommend living at The Madison. As soon as we moved in we were without hot water for the first two weeks before it was fixed. Also, our washer and dryer were broken for weeks before being fixed. After the first few months of living at The Madison my 3 roommates and I all started feeling sick. We weren't sure what the cause was so we decided to check out air vents where we discovered mold. We informed The Madison of this discovery and maintenance was brought in and told us it was just dust. They cleaned and painted over the vents and said the issue was resolved. We let a week or so go by and had no change in our health and felt something was still wrong. 2/4 of us decided to go to the doctor and both got diagnosed with upper respiratory infections. So we purchased at-home mold tests. Mold started growing on the test within a day or so. We sent an email to The Madison management with our findings and were instructed that we needed to have the tests sent to a lab. So we did as instructed and got the results back within a week. The tests results showed we had 3 kinds of mold growing in our apartment. We forwarded the results to management where we were told that the tests are not always accurate. Since our testing was inaccurate we offered them to conduct their own testing, which they did not do. On top of that, there are utilities that are stated to be covered in our lease yet we still get billed for. read more

For starters, management and office employees are rude and unprofessional, they apparently got new management but nothing seems to be different. The only good thing I can say is they handled maintenance requests in a timely matter. They charge you mystery fees and fines and they do not like giving deposits back they will try to confuse you into saying they don't do them and will try to confuse you if you're a college student so just beware that when living here. They also did not give me full deposit even after cleaning my room completely spotless they will try to charge you damage fees to take a little from it. Another thing that is minor but kind of annoying is that they never gave us access keys to pool which they never even opened. read more

DO NOT LIVE HERE. Management is unprofessional and incompetent. You will never have a correct rent/utilities statement. Your mail will never be correct or will get lost. Nothing is clean, the pool is never open, and everything is cheaply made. Not worth the frustration or the money. read more

There are so many problems with this apartment, it's hard to describe. I'll give you a list of reasons to not live here: 1. The staff is incredibly rude and they don't care about your issues. Upon moving in at the beginning of the semester, I found my apartment was not furnished (i.e. no bed or anything) despite being repeatedly told that the apartments were furnished. Initially, the staff at the front desk told me "that's not my problem" and that they wouldn't do ANYTHING. It wasn't until after an hour of back and forth that they budged on making the smallest effort to fix the issue by calling the manager who was apparently on a camping trip and unavailable (why is the only person that can handle issues on a camping trip, unavailable by phone the week classes start when most people move in?). It was until the third night that I was able to get basic furniture moved into my apartment (after a huge struggle with the staff who had apparently done this to many others). 2. After the manager returned from the trip, she tried to charge me MORE money saying that I now had a furnished apartment, so they needed more money. NO apology for the bait and switch they pulled on me and countless others. Again, the staff was instantly angry and rude to me with zero provocation. 3. The actual apartments are nothing like the model apartment they show you. It's run down, the plastic floor boards in the bathroom were completely coming off the floor, mold was in the vent system, the carpet looked like it had been through 100 years of tenants, everything was in bad shape. 4. The apartment went under rent abatement from the City of Ames and all tenants were ordered NOT to pay rent until a list of several dozen issues were fixed by The Madison. I could go on, but I hope this is enough for you to stop considering this apartment as a potential place to live. read more

This apartment complex will scam you. Every time I checked my rental portal, it seemed there was another charge to my account. They will take every chance they get to take your money. The staff is incompetent and not helpful. In december, I had a pipe burst outside of my apartment that ended up flooding my room. I was unable to stay because they ripped up my carpet and it was like that for two weeks. They told me it was my fault and did not prorate my monthly rent for December. In fact, they were extremely rude about the process and never updated me on my room. The pictures online are very deceiving. The actual units are dirty and my room was even starting to grow mold. Very unhappy with this complex, a complete joke. read more

The company was recently bought out after a terrible first semester with them. First semester they were extremely incompetent, had everything resting on one persons shoulders that did not really know what he was doing and it showed. It got so bad that the entire Madison community did not have to pay for rent for the month of January per the city of Ames. When the company got bought I was looking forward to my experience getting better. I was completely wrong. The people are a little better, but my rent amount is never right, I have to talk to them monthly like clockwork about the same issues. The pool is likely never going to open as they aren't able to give me a ballpark estimate. The only bonus of this new company is that they sometimes do social events. Save your money and hassle and do not live here. read more

BEWARE FUTURE RENTERS!!!!!! This apartment complex puts on an absolute show, they act helpful in the beginning and promise all of these things. For one example I signed during a month where they said there would be no charge for no-cosigner that month so I signed up and they told me I had to pay a security deposit of $500 well fast forward to after move out and I'm asking for my return on my Security deposit and they told me the $500 was non-refundable because it was a no Co-signer fee, so they scammed $500 right from me. These are by far the most pathetic and worst complex to live in and talk to. read more

This place is the worst - my daughter (a freshman - with no experience in these things). Bought their spiel and signed an online contract to rent next year. Long story short, she and her friend changed their minds and even though there was no room assignment, no bedroom and they found replacements themselves - they were each charged $250...and they called my daughter several times as I was trying to work with them and threatened her. Terrible place!! read more

do not rent here the place is a dump the management stopped caring about you as soon as they signed the lease. I've complained about my outdated ac unit that's now 19 years old the breaks down multiple times a month and the water heater that is outside in a uninsulated closet inflating my electric bill I pay between $250-300 a month. The electric bill is not dependent on usage if the appliances are the things consuming all the power. Management lied and told me it would be $20-30 per person in bills but I'm paying $100 per person. They regularly charge the residents with mystery fees and fines. read more

-Their demo apartment is WAY more updated than the real one you sign for -The staff is extremely confrontational -They have no idea what they are talking about when you ask them a question about anything and you will get multiple answers from different people. -24 hour basketball court seems nice until you have people playing every night from 1-4 am and you have work at 6 the next morning and the apartment complex refuses to do anything about it so I called the city ordinance about noise. -We got a "new" washer and dryer at the END of our lease but really it's just an old one put into our apartment saying it's new and it STILL doesn't work. We had to call maintenance at least 10-15 times through out the year about broken washer and dryer and a few of the times when they came to fix it they made it 10 times worse. -The water heater is non existent in the winter. I was taking cold showers after 5 min every single day for months and never got fixed. And no two people could shower at the same time or within an hour for that matter. -The sinks that we're supposed to get updated are crusty. And I mean CRUSTY. Filled with rust my bathroom sink was all year long! -One of my roommates got a dog and NONE of my roommates said it was okay! The office would to absolutely nothing about the extra dog in our apartment complex. (Wasn't even a service dog). And after informing the office that the dog would pee, poop, and bite at everything they still refused to do anything. -The poop that we were all being charged for at the beginning of the lease WASNT EVEN OPEN YET. -The coffee here at the coffee bar taste like shit. Just saying.... -They refuse to let anyone pick up packages and have no form of package system other than cing during office hours (Which I work) so I wasn't able to pick up my package (which was my new cell phone) for weeks until I took off of work one morning so I could stay when the office opened. -They make you move out July 25th instead of at the end of the month which is 6 days earlier than I should have to move out considering they MAKE you pay for the entire month, not prorated rent. And when asking if I could either have my $86 dollars back for the 6 days that I'll be homeless because I'm not available to move into my new place until August 1st they said no and made sure to let me know if I'm there any later they will charge me $250 dollars everyday after that I'm late. -They OPENLY ADMITED to their online system being wrong with how much you owe and how the paper that you'll get will say differently. The office lady said "well you can just call here at the end of the month and I'll give you the exact dollar amount you owe. HECK NO I SHOULDNT HAVE TO CALL EVERY MONTH. And I was charged with late fees MULTIPLE times after paying the amount that it said I owed online. I can honestly tell you DO NOT LIVE HERE. NOTHING. NOT EVEN THEIR "DEALS" THAT THEY OFFER COULD GET ME TO LIVE HERE read more

I have a really bad experience. I signed the lease in October 2018 that was meant to end in July 2019, but the office people told me that my lease does not end until July 2020. This place sucks. The place is so dirty. Dog poop everywhere. I don't think they did a background check before people move in. They enjoy charging hidden fees as well. read more

FUTURE RESIDENCE BEWARE! This apartment complex is nice on the interior but we have had no luck with the amenities or cooperation from the office manager. * Amenities promised are not working properly or are not available. The pool they promised never passed inspection but in early October when we inquired about a credit for this amenity, we were told our name would be added to a list of tenants. * We couldn't move in early because they were power washing the building, the carpets needed to be cleaned, & they claimed paperwork needed to be submitted by the 1st of the month. We HAD to pay for the entire month but they do not prorate. We were not given our unit number until shortly before the paperwork was due. One and 1/2 months later, the carpets have yet to be cleaned. * Charged double renters insurance. The third time we went back to provide the "additional" information they needed it was on the due date of the rent. If we didn't pay the insurance they automatically charged, the rent would be short by that amount. They will not credit our account. When we tried to handle these items in a professional manner the building manager was reading from a script and was not helpful. She ends her conversations stating she would love to help resolve any problems, but she does not. We are unable to find another number to call to discuss these items so my suggestion is to turn back now. Read the other reviews. Google reviews currently average 1.6/5. Apartments.com all 10 reviews are 1 star. read more