HELP...My apartmeny building is infested with Roaches?

Question

Hi, our whole apartment building has been seeing roaches. We all went to the landlord with our concerns. At first he was giving each of us our own spray. Whne the problem grew way worse we all talked to him again. He had a person come in for 3 consective months and put down live bait, which is supposed to kill, them and render the males sterile. We have seen little improvement. I have boughten my own spray..entirely bleached my house, and put down bait traps every where.
The landlord has not sent the guy back to keep up. The guy doing our building could tell where they were coming from which is the apartment next to mine..the tenants before were extremely poor house keepers..
My question is do I have any legal rights with him due to this problem? Is there anyway to demand the problem be taken care of? Can I with hold payment for rent?
Where do I start with this?
We did not have this problem 6 months ago, its new. also this in NE.

Answer 1

Roaches are hard to get rid of once you get them unless you catch the problem when it first starts. Most infestations are of the German cockroach variety which is hard to combat since it carries around its egg sac until it hatches (other types leave it somewhere where it is exposed to predators). First, baits rarely work. Roaches are not dumb insects and will avoid baits. they do not like boric acid powder and will avoid it. You can use it behind fridges, ranges, in cabinets.
We got roaches from a U-Haul moving van when we rented one to move in. We noticed them about a week after moving into the house we are at now and worried because once you get them they are a burden. As a desperate resort, I hate roaches and but am deathly afraid of spiders too, I infested the home with spiders. Put them into walls and behind range and microwave and watched the roaches (normally seen every night, a few at a time) stop appearing. The last I saw was a month ago when one of the spiders had been sitting on the wall by the range and quickly ran down behind the stove, a second later it reappeared chasing a roach with an egg sac. I crushed the roach and that was the last one I saw.

desperate, yes, but I have worked for management companies and seen what infestation can eventually grow into.

Answer 2

We are having the SAME issue, although we moved into our apartment in Dec. & saw a roach the FIRST day & we called the office immeadiatly. Also, I vacuumed up a bunch of dead roaches, along the baseboards (when we first moved in) Needless to say, my husband & I are mad as hell. They have Orkin come in & spray every Friday & they are making a tenant move out (but she has until the end of Feb. to do so---they believe that SHE is the problem!) So far, we have seen 7 LIVE ones & that is 7 too many for us! We are VERY clean, tidy people. Now, they are saying that the Orkin man came into our place & looked in our cupboards & under our sink & he went back to the apt. manager & told her that we had food out in our cupboard (what???) & we had a "bucket of grease under our sink"----WTF??? I was so offended, I became very upset & then the apt. manager said that the Orkin moron must have "mixed up the apartments"---we are so upset! It has been my understanding that you can never get rid of these bastards. How patient can we be??? My patience are wearing THIN. We continue to pay our rent, but why should we when we live in filth??? We have a toddler & I am so paranoid that he may get something or find something. We make sure things are cleaned, I wipe the kitchen down with bleach, we don't leave food or dishes out. This is crap! We live in NE too. I have tried to find info on the health dept...nothing. DOES ANYONE KNOW WHERE TO START??? And what can we do??? This is SICK!!!
They asked us to "please be patient thru the month of Jan."----well, how long are we supposed to put up with this??? Isn't it ILLEGAL to ALLOW people to move into a place when you are AWARE of a PEST problem???

Answer 3

Get some Maxforce Roach Bait and put it around your apt. This is the same stuff the major companies use. As far as your rights, you will need to contact code enforcement.