Roaches - Landlord Forum thread 348800

Roaches by Anon (WI) on October 16, 2016 @22:56

Tenants are complaining about roaches in the duplex. I'm assuming it's pretty difficult to determine if one of the tenants brought them in. How do you handle this? Does the landlord just pay for extermination?

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Re: Roaches by Garry on October 17, 2016 @00:04	[ Reply ]

First, try getting some liquid chemical sprays in 1 gallon containers from Lowes, Home Depot, Walmart, Target, etc. It should cost you under $20/gal. Use a whole gal. up between both apartments. Do it every 2-3 weeks for 2 months. Change brands each month, as sometimes roaches become immune to a certain chemical in a single brand. If they are still seeing roaches after 4 months, then call an exterminator in. Remember, it takes time to get rid of roaches, and exterminators will not guarantee they will get rid of them in just 1-2 sprayings. They usually want a 1 year contract. Do it yourself before calling an exterminator in. As for the cost? Unless you can prove 1 of the Ts definitely brought them in, then the cost is on you. However, If both Ts have roaches, you could ask each T to chip in $10 each time you spray to help defer the costs, and you pay anything above that.

Re: Roaches by Katiekate (New York) on October 17, 2016 @02:46	[ Reply ]

There have been several court cases in New York and New Jersey concerning this. The responsibility falls on the landlord where it cannot be proven that a tenant is the cause. It is very hard to get rid of roaches, Any treatment must be the entire building as they will just scoot between units to escape. I honestly have never yet found a process to get rid of them once infested. Control is all I have ever seen.