embarrassing question about "pests"

Home Maintenance Pest & Rodent Control
1

so my family recently had a fire in our apartment complex and had to find a new place within ten days, SO we ended up at this place that doesn't seem TOO bad...it's bearable for a year. anyway, the only problem i really have with the place is that there are roaches. i saw lots (1-2 a day) when we first moved in (EEWWWWWWRRRGGGHH!!) and called them about it. i was told that ALL the buildings get sprayed, every other week, that the bug guy was here every week and if it wasn't your week to get sprayed, you just called and they'd do it anyway. so we put ourselves on that list, and the bug guy, instead of spraying, put out bait traps to "see how bad it is" first. so for a week he wouldn't spray. then he finally did, and it got better. i have not seen any in a week or so, but my husband has seen a couple. now i come to find out, after my husband talked to one of the neighbors, they've had roaches for THREE YEARS. now, a couple things. first, isn't that a breach of lease? that is NOT a healthy living environment! if it was just my husband and me i wouldn't put up quite the fuss, but i have a TWO YEAR OLD. second, is this bug guy totally screwing these people over? i would be tempted to blame it on the apartment complex, but apparently this bug guy IS here every week. i have lived in apartments since i was 19 and have never seen bugs. i mean, if you spray, they go away. period. that's how it works. i just get the feeling this guy is screwing these people over BIG time. is there such a thing as roaches that truly won't go away, or is this guy just spraying water when he comes? does anyone have any experience with this?

what do i do? i already feel a bit wierd about being here - we are probably the only white family in the entire complex, and while our immediate neighbors are cool, i can't drive through the parking lot without getting stared at. and i get the feeling that most of my neighbors don't actually expect anything to be taken care of like i do (like giant holes in screens, garbage disposal not working, etc). and i already feel like i'm being the pain in the butt tenant, expecting these things to be done. if i can calm down, i want to call the complex manager and talk to her, but i really don't want to call all witchy and angry and confrontational. should i call someone else like the health department?? it truly has gotten better, but just knowing that our neighbors have had roaches for three years makes me sick to my stomach. i am NOT going to deal with this the entire time i live here. help!

2

Carrie...If I were you I would start looking for another place to live...it sounds to me like a problem that just isnt going to go away. I think that most apartment complexes are fighting an uphill battle with "pests" because all it takes is ONE neighbor that doesnt care...and the pests have a place to scuttle to when the spraying is done. I can't speak to whether the living conditions violates your lease or not, you would probably need to contact a lawyer to find that out. I would start keeping track of every contact that you have with your landlord, take pictures of the roaches...and any other problem that you are having there. Document and make a paper trail...if you are going to try and break a lease I would say that is going to be invaluable.
Good luck!!!
Ruth Ann

3

I can share my understanding with you, based on the experiences of family members that had to move into an apartment at one point as well. They sprayed their apartment before the moved in and they found dead roaches. Within a few weeks they were back. Apparently the spray kills those that are there, but if the can run away they will. They run to a safer apartment, after a few days to a week or so it safe for them to return, just in time for them to run from another apartment.

I am not sure that there is an answer when you live in an apartment setting like this. If there are roaches there, getting rid of them can be very difficult.

I want to add one thing. Be careful. We went to Florida one time and I had never seen anything like the roaches they have there. We stayed in a Condo. Arriving at the end of the vacation season in the fall, they doing the fall maintenance on the building. They told us they were spraying the building for pests, beginning with the level above us. Well the pests ran to our level and I freaked, they were big enough to run away with you. Apparently they are the norm for that area at that time of year. They then came in and sprayed our unit. We were gone for the day, and when we came back we could not smell the pesticide. I was young and had no idea how strong they really could be.

The next morning my son woke up with hives. With in a few days he was running a fever and throwing up. The day we flew home, he seemed better but he was so lathargic. After we got back home I put him to bed in his own bed, the hives were gone, the fever was gone, and he seemed to just need some rest. I thought he had the flue, and the hives had come from something he had eaten. The next morning when he woke up one whole side of his face swollen and deep red. His eye was swollen shut and his ear was huge. I called the doctor and she told me to get him in to see her immediately.

He was having an allergic reaction, and she told me we were lucky, apparently the whole time he had been having a reaction and I was too young and stupid to see it for what it was. Although there is no way to know for sure what caused it, after going through the events of our trip, she told us that it was probably from having our place sprayed.

She said that if he was sensitive to something that is normal for that environment that we should not take him back there until he is much older and his body is more mature. He is now 22 and he has never been back. We talked about it a few times, but just could not take that chance. He was just a little guy, but who knows. Any way, watch for any signs that he may be reacting. I hope I did not scare you, but I felt like you should at least be aware of what could happen.

4

Hi Carrie - I had an experience very similar to yours, except I moved from a one-bedroom apartment into a two-bedroom in the same complex. Never saw a bug until I moved to the new apartment and then I was inundated. It was the most awful, stressful, disgusting 6 weeks of my life.

I went to the manager and said we needed to be sprayed, so she sent some idiot who literally squirted stuff behind the toilet, under the bathroom and sink and then under the kitchen sink and LAUGHED at me when I asked if that would take care of the roaches! Obviously it didn't...so then I called the State Pest Control Commission (I lived in AZ at the time), had them do an assessment of my apartment and was told there was no way I'd ever get rid of the bugs unless they sprayed the entire building ALL AT ONCE and got everyone out so the poison could dissapate. Basically bomb the hell out of the place so the roaches had no where to run. By this time they were scurrying around in broad daylight, I was finding their dropping on my dishes and stored food and I even had them fall off the ceiling onto me at night while I was sleeping! Un-freaking-believable. That was the final straw. I was a wreck from staying up all night with a can of bug spray terrified about them crawling on me, contaminating everything...even now I'm getting nauseous thinking about it.

So I went to talk to the complex manager, and really I meant to be nice - but after her nonchalant attitude like she didn't really care, I seriously lost it on her. I asked her how she'd like it if every surface in her home was covered with roach droppings, how she'd like it if they were falling off the ceiling onto her while she was sleeping in bed at night or how she'd like it knowing they were crawling on her toothbrush before she brushed her teeth! I ended up threatening three things that got me out of my lease. First, I promised I'd videotape my healthy roach population and send it along with a letter to every tv station in town that had a consumer-help segment on the news. Everyone in town would know what a roach motel she was running. Second, I promised that rather than kill the roaches - I'd trap each and every one I could and slip them through the mail slot of her office at night so she could learn what it was like to live like I was. They can populate a place pretty quick. Third, I promised to call a lawyer who specialized in landlord/tenant law and would file a suit for running a compex that wasn't up to health code.

Needless to say, I got out of my lease. I ended up sleeping in my car until I found a house, brought each moving box in the apartment individually, bug sprayed it after it was packed, moved it to a storage unit and after the storage unit had all my stuff, I bombed the whole thing with about 10X the recommended dosage. I was taking no chances that any of those nasty things were moving with me. I even threw away any boxed foods in the pantry and took the labels off the canned foods. If you read up, those things can live off of the glue on the labels or even cigarette butts in an ashtray! Happily I only found 2 that somehow made the move, but they didn't escape the wrath of Amy. LOL

Find another place to live and get the hell out of there. If need be, threaten them like I did until they let you out of your lease. There is absolutely no excuse for them to let you live with roaches because they're too lazy to do anything about it. Don't be afraid to be the bitchy resident - sometimes you just gotta be to get what you want/need. And lastly, the lady who wrote about the allergic reaction? I found out later that lots of people have an allergy to the actual roaches! You might want to bring that up as a health concern...more ammo, if you know what I mean. Also, make sure that if you get to move that you take every precaution not to move them with you. It only takes one female with eggs to repopulate your new place. Best of luck - I hope you find a better home!

5

Carrie, a year is a LONG time to live with this! I would try every angle to get out of there! My husband and I owned the house next door to us where we used to live and he rented it out to some not so great people, I have to say that was the most miserable year of my life, I guess it made it worse that we owned the house and these people were destroying it. Its not good to live by people you feel uncomfortable with. What are you going to do when the weather gets nice and your little one wants to go out in play?

The only thing I can say about the bugs is that we just built a new house and the bugs are crazy!! I think we took the land they used to live on and now they are mad at us! I kept seeing things that I thought were roaches but they fly so I was like phew its not roaches, come to find out there IS flying roaches!!!! How disgusting, my worst nightmare! Its only in the summer time thank goodness! We will be spraying our house this year, I cannot live with that again. They never found a way in, they stayed in the garage. But my house is very clean, we only have trash outside or a day. So I cant explain it. So it doesnt totally mean the place is dirty and infested. We also rented a beach house last year in Florida, it was emaculate, and I happened to see a roach trap in the pantry and wondered hmmm why is that there, well when night fell I found out! The roaches come out! Ugh so gross. But I would just talk to the manager when your calm about it (if you ever are) and get to the bottom of it. If they cant do anything about it, they should let you leave, maybe if you complain enough they will get sick of you and let you go? lol! Anyways Sorry you are going through that, its not fun, good luck!

6

Certain areas tend to get more than others, especially apartments. I've never had even one in the 15 years I've lived North of the River. But when we used to live in midtown KC, it was terrible. I hired a company called Regan Pest Control. Because of the daycare kids and my pets he used this paste that gets slathered on the walls of the cabinets, up high and in corners where the kids wouldn't notice. But even if they did, the stuff would not harm them, only make them not feel well. This stuff worked very well at keeping them at bay so long as the guy came every month. If I tried stopping the service they would immediately come back. So we had them out every week for 6.5 years! That was 50 dollars per month and it started out back in the late 80's and early to mid 90's. I am so happy I don't need a pest control company and haven't in so many years.

Suzi

7

So sorry to hear you're dealing with this. But don't think that it's just the "not-so-nice" or less-than-clean places that get roaches. Even very nice, very clean apartment complexes and homes can have this problem if they don't deal with it early enough. It's just that most nicer places will have pest control come out the minute a tenant even suspects that they saw a roach, lol! And some places spray or put out bait regularly, even when they don't see any, as a precaution. So the bugs don't have a chance to populate.

Roaches are notoriously difficult to get rid of if you don't catch the problem very early! If there is already a bad infestation before spraying begins, it's not as simple as, "if you spray, they go away." Yes, it's possible that the guy is ripping them off, but roaches reproduce very quickly and most of the time there are egg sacs left behind, so you can't just assume that because there are roaches, he's not doing his job.

In an apartment complex, the problem is that you don't know how clean your neighbors keep their apartments. Roaches can live off of very little for a relatively long time, so one sinkful of dirty dishes left overnight can sustain a whole lot of them for a week or more! And anyone with a pet food bowl is feeding roaches, too. Spraying will help cut down on their population, but spray likely won't kill all of them as long as they have a little food, water, and plenty of places to hide from the spray. I would buy the gel bait stuff and use it to cut down on them in my own apartment. It seems to work best.

You can also cut down on how many you have in your apartment by making sure there is nothing (or at least very little) to attract them. Get any drippy faucets fixed so you're not providing water; keep your counters immaculate (no crumbs!); clean your appliances often: don't forget the toaster crumb tray, refrigerator drip pan, coffee pot, and garbage disposal; get grease and food drips off the top of stove and clean inside the oven, etc.; take trash out daily; vacuum often and everywhere; make sure your cabinets don't have any little food spills, like flour or sugar; and use sealed containers for food, as well.

Other than that, there's not much you can do but move out... and be aware that it is very easy to transport roaches with you! They seem to love to hide in cardboard boxes. One unhatched egg sac, or one pregnant female, and you'll likely be dealing with them again wherever you move. :-P

By the way, for those of you that mentioned them, the roaches that fly are likely "wood roaches" (aka the American cockroach). They prefer rotting wood, dead leaves, and moisture, so if you have them indoors in the Midwest, it's possible that you have a problem with rotting wood or a water leak (or both).

HTH! Good luck!
--Amy

8

If you are in Kansas, contact HCCI. It is my understanding that not taking care of pests IS a breach on the part of the landlord, and you are within your rights to break lease and move if the problem is persistent. Here is their website: http://www.hcci-ks.org/TLLservices.htm

9
  1. If it is a colored neighborhood hate to say it but you are probably getting the best you'll get and if some tenants don't try to help the problem hate to tell you it probably won't go completely away. 2. If you can buy combat roach motels and put them all over and the combat in a syringe and put inch or two lengths of it thru your cabnents under and in drawers in kitchen and do it in bathroom or whereever you see them the most it will drop the population alot and when you move your microwave and different appliances, clothes ect can transport them to new house. sorry but no good solution. Sheryl from kansas
10

Hello,when your husband and you looked at the place if you noticed the holes in the screen doors and that majority of the neighborhood was of a different race.Then being uncomfortable is your own fault, but as far as the bugs maybe you can try purchasing your own bug spray and spraying yourself. Also you still might want to call the leasing building and advise them about the situation with you neighbors.If that doesn't work I would check into your lease. If they won't fix it I would think that would be a breach of contract.hopefully spraying youself will fix your problem. :)

11

I don't know much about roaches except it is really hard to get rid of them. With everyone in the complex having them it would really be hard just for you yourself to get rid of them. When ever you do move you will have to do cleaning, shaking and maybe even spraying your clothes because you can take them with you either in adult form or more likely in egg form. I would suggest looking online for gels or other methods. Yes the guy could be ripping them/you off but that would be hard to prove.

12

Good Morning Carrie, I am so sorry for the fire experience you three had to go through. Hubby's cousin went through it in Sept.

What I know about roaches is gross. If they are in the neighboring apartments they will make their way to yours also. Even if you get yours under control they do and will return, from Theirs. Been there with our youngest son's apartment they lived in. They even made it into our Home. Ewwwwwwwwww
Took me forever to get rid of them. I finally put those roach motels Every where. Sprayed inside and outside our home. When the grand kids came for an over night, I shock out their backpacks OUTSIDE cause those nasty critters hid every where.

What would the cost be to break your lease? Lose the deposit?

Calling the health department May help, since you mentioned your neighbors problem etc.. If I felt uncomfortable living there no matter the cost (easier to say when we weren't all going through this down flux) and for the health of my children I would Move. Asher would get roach Bites, Believe it or not they do bite. They Multiply Quicker then Rabbits.
They moved to a rental duplex and brought the dang things with um. Next time they moved they threw out just about everything. Roach's will get into your VCR DVD players, anything that has heat attached. Under Frig, under stoves dishwashers. They Gross me OUT. When I would go to babysit I took my own roach spray.. No Joke.

I would Move Carrie,

God Bless and Hopefully some one has less expensive advice
Karen Nana of 5

13

You may want to do a little research about roaches online. Educate yourself about them and then talk to the pest guy about what he is using. He maybe spraying often, but not the right pesticide. However, what I think you will learn is that it is incredibly difficult to get rid of roaches. I have had them. My husband studied entomology in college and always told me roaches would survive a nuclear blast. They are built to survive EVERYTHING. That was a long time ago and maybe they have more effective chemicals now. But, my opinion, I would live with seeing only 1 or 2 roaches a day then having my two year old around some pretty heavy duty chemical spraying every week.

You certainly have the right to talk to your landlord, and you are right to NOT do it when you're angry. However, you need to consider that your neighbors don't expect anything to be fixed, because in their experience, nothing gets fixed.

My daughter is the only white person in her neighborhood. She felt like she stood out for awhile. I don't think she was obviously stared at or anything. Of course, you may be being stared at because you're new to the complex, not because you're white. It didn't take long for her to fit in. One time I was there, her neighbor called me over and told me how much he liked having her around and that I should be proud of her for working so hard to make something of herself. Either you have nice people in the complex, or you don't, my guess is that you probably have some of each. You just need to decide what kind of neighbor you'll be.

14

You can't get rid of roaches with spray. The first apartment my husband and I lived in had roaches and the complex claimed they had pest control spray routinely. They failed to mention that the people above us had changed their locks so pest control was unable to get in. Come to find out the people above us were aboslute slobs and they were the source of the issue. We tried to claim breach of contract for unhealthy living environment but that didn't work so we demanded they move us to a completely different building. Luckily, we didn't have any roaches follow us. A little advice...get rid of all cardboard boxes. They eat glue and if they get in your boxes they will follow you every where. We put everything in plastic storage tubs and taped them shut. Have you noticed that you probably have no other bugs besides the roaches? No spiders, ants, silverfish? Roaches pretty much take over and are impossible to get rid of with spray or bug bombs or bait traps, especially in apartment complexes. I would try to move as soon as possible. Good luck!

15

Hello Carrie, I've had my share of pests, but the worst of them all were brown recluse spiders. Our bug guy recommended getting our house sprayed every month for six months then going to every other month. Your bug guy isn't doing you all any favors by spot-spraying. Your whole complex needs to be sprayed at the same time for it to work. Otherwise, the roaches are playing musical apartments.

If at all possible, my advice for you would be to move. Just make sure wherever you go, have your next place treated for these nasty things because you will take them with you. I wish there were a better solution for you, but unfortunately, there isn't.

You may want to call the Health Dept. I'm thinking because there is a child involved, they will want to be contacted about this. But I'd still move. The people who already live there, to me, don't seem to care. The problem will probably not change unless something drastic happens.

Our spider problem is now under control. When we first moved here, I saw 2-3 spiders almost everyday. Since we've had our bug guy, I haven't seen a spider in about 2-3 months... and it was only one. Before that, I hadn't seen one in about 4-5 months. We've lived here for a year-and-a-half. I've found out they are extremely difficult to get rid of, and we're winning!! So I'm hopeful.

I don't think you're going to be completely bug-free unless you move. Good luck and keep us all updated!!

On your side, ls

16

Carrie,

Here is the link for the Kansas Tenants Rights, they actually have a book you can get which goes into all the detail and they have phone numbers you can call to get help! http://www.hud.gov/local/ks/renting/tenantrights.cfm

I too would recommend the roach motels as they worked when we were dealing with them, but again as others have said if it's an apartment complex they will never be entirely gone unless they do the entire place at one time! Start looking for a place to live and get the city health inspectors involved, they may be able to help you out.

One thing most people don't know is that the landlord cannot keep your deposit without a very good reason, and if there is a problem you can generally break the lease without worrying about it costing you! As a tenant you do have the right to a healthy living environment without problems, so don't be afraid to speak up!

If you have to move everything immediately to a new house, have it bombed immediately. And get rid of as much stuff as you don't need to take! Just be prepared to take action so as to not let them in to your new place. Don't pack boxes and leave them in the apartment, pack and take them out immediately! If the appliances are yours and the furniture, clean it out before you take it to your new home if possible! I know it is a problem, but you definitely don't want to take them with you!! We did what someone else suggested and put everything in storage for a bit and bombed it, then unpacked one box at a time and eliminated them that way!

Hope things work out for you!
Linda

17

We had a roach problem last year, and live in a mobile home. I finally called a exterminator at tax time last year, and he came out and sprayed. We had to remove all of our food from the cabinets, and everthing from all the cabinets in all the bathrooms. He sprayed everwhere and then we did the same thing a month later. He also gave us a special roach bait to use if we did see any. There was a significant drop off within a week, and as time went on, things only got better. He did not want to be at our house more than twice-so he did a great job-and gave a six month guarentee. If you are not having to remove all of your food so he can spray everywhere, (our two girls also had to be gone for 6 hours) and if the whole complex is not being sprayed at the same time, then your problem is not going to be solved.

18

Hi Carrie,

You have my simpathy. As a military spouse who has the move every two to three years usully into base housing which is townhouses and duplexes. Roaches are very hard to get rid of. I lived in a duplex and my neighbor was not the neatest person. The problem is the whole complex needs to be treated at once. If the bug guy sprays one place then they will just move next door til the coast is clear. That was my problem, things were fine but when ever my neighbor went on vacation she would fumeagate her house the the little buggers would show up at my house.

I would see if you could get out of your lease and find a new place. Barring that the only thing you can do is buy a lot of air tight containers and keep ALL your food in it. Also make sure there is no water laying anywhere, no paper bags or cardboard boxes(they like the glue)and keep your drains plugged when you are not using them. And obviously keep you kitchen spotless. If there is nothing for them at your place hopefully they will stop coming.

19

Why don't you get your own exterminator to spray your apartment. If that is not affordable, then definately talk to the manager. Talk to her/him about your delima and that you think the pest control guy isn't doing what he should. Unfortunately with roaches, they lay thousands of eggs and hatch quickly...they live in the walls and if the exterminator isn't spraying everywhere then they'll keep coming back. I grew up in Louisiana and we had roaches all the time. Especially where I lived, our houses where built on what used to be swamp land. It could take years to completely get rid of them. This probably wasn't as helpful as you'd hope but it is good to be informed. Good luck and God Bless.

20

If your neighboring apartments aren't staying clean they may be attracting the pests. It's very difficult to get rid of the bugs once they're there. It sounds like you are in a low-income area where most people really don't care a whole lot about their surroundings. That being the case, they probably don't keep their apts. very clean (ie., dirty dishes in the sink, trash overflowing, etc.). This makes a perfect living environment for roaches. Once they truly infest a place they can live in the walls, floors (under carpets), everywhere! They live on our detritus. They especially love nasty food leavings, cardboard, adhesive (think wallpaper glue, etc.). I hope you are able to find other accomodations quickly. I think the bugs are probably there to stay.