Location: Texas
We moved into a duplex 3 weeks and immediately found German cockroaches. We immediately informed the landlord. The landlord has hired an exterminator. We’ve had two sprays, which has done nothing. The landlord scheduled a clean out and fogging for a week away. The roaches are coming from the duplex neighbor, who has refused pest treatments and is extremely dirty. What are our next steps? This has been 3 weeks of killing hundreds of roaches a day and we cannot unpack our boxes due to the amount of roaches in the kitchen and bathroom. How should we address this with the landlord and ask if we can break the lease? Thanks!
Comments
You can’t break the lease without paying any fees you may have agreed to if the landlord is making good faith efforts as required by your state and lease to address/remedy the issue, which they are doing at this point. They may move toward evicting the neighbor if they are the cause, but you can’t really force that along, the landlord needs to decide to start that process.
You can continue reporting and documenting everything, in the event it does not get resolved soon and the landlord is not upholding their obligations. You’re not at the point you can break lease yet, though.
I believe most renter’s insurance policies exclude pest issues unless you have a rider, but you may want to confirm.