Add new comment

I have the same problem. I

#82795 On Thursday, September 25, 2008 Guest (not verified) said,

I have the same problem. I moved into my apartment in June of this year, signed a 1-year-lease. I noticed when I moved in there were bugs in the fridge, I didn't know what they were at first. Then I started seeing all of these little baby bugs all over the kitchen and bathroom. I caught two of them and an exterminator told me they were baby roaches. The ones in the fridge were immature roaches. I contacted my landlord and it took her almost a week to do anything and all she did was bring me gel bait and spray (which I had to do myself). I went a couple days without seeing them (but trust me, just cause you don't see them doesnt mean they're gone). I got up for work this morning and found one crawling around in my kitty cats food bowl. I was afraid of that happenening but I heard having a cat can help with roaches. I have read up on Ohio law and know these things...
-If your landlord refuses to do anything call the health department and have them come out and inspect. If they find your living conditions unfit, you can break the lease with no harm done to you or your credit.
-You can put your rent in escrow. Contact the clerk of courts and find out what steps need to be taken to do this. I do know you have to send a certified letter to your landlord about the problem before contacting the courts. If your lease says you have to give a 30 day notice before you move out then you by law, have to give your landlord 30 days to take care of the problem from reciept of the letter. You landlord cannot evict you and will not recieve a rent payment. You will be paying rent to the courts, they hold it until your landlord does something about the problem.
-Do not just move out and stop paying rent, that will hurt you more than what the roaches are doing.

I hope this helps, I know exactly what you're going through. I tip toe thru my apartment searching every inch making sure there is nothing there. In the meantime, get some boric acid (you can get 1lb bottles of it at the dollar store) put it in every crack and crevase you can find, thats where they like to hide. Put all of your food in tightly sealed containers or buy those freezer food storage bags. Don't leave dirty dishes out, or clean ones for that matter. The acid will poison the roaches. They walk thru it and then clean themselves ingesting it and it kills them. I would also get some gel bate. Trying to get rid of roaches in an apartment is a losing battle. If you have them, so do your neighbors and if they're not doing anything to control the situation you're pretyy much screwed.
I understand you have a baby who's on the floor most times? Let your landlord know you are aware cockroaches cause asthma in small children and if something should happen, he'll be stuck with the medical bills. Oh, another thing, don't leave water anywhere. Roaches LOVE water. Wipe out your sink, tub and floor after washing dishes or taking a shower. Move out your fridge and stove and put the acid behind there as well. Roaches can survive for weeks without food, but they need water to survive.
Hope this helps you. Good luck!

Reply


Input format:
Expand filter description
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
Expand filter description
  • Web and e-mail addresses are automatically converted into links.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
Expand filter description
  • You can use Textile markup to format text.