German roaches - tardy tenants

[Meena Balaji]

Hi All,

Looking for advice. We have a rental property which is infested with german roaches because the tenants are unclean. My property manager visited and sprayed the place but it was not effective. He saw food all around the house and general condition was filthy.

Now we are planning to get a pest control company to take immediate action but is there a way to penalize the tenants for failing to upkeep the property

Thanks,

Meena

[Lee L.]

@James Qiu I was just going to say to Advion from Amazon. A pest control company I know even uses it.

@Meena Balaji It's hard to change people's habits, and the roaches are completely on them. Based on my experience, once the place gets clean, the roaches will go away. You might want to walk through their unit and point out the problem areas so they realize how they aren't clean. Check to see if there are scraps under the fridge, near or under the stove. Check to see if they have a sealed trash container. Make sure they have a sealed pet food container if they have pets. Take a look at their pantry. Tell them that next time, pest control will be at their expense. 

I once rehabbed a unit where it was filled with hundreds if not thousands of roaches. Basically, in that apartment, anything you pick up - a sheet of paper, a can of coffee, under the microwave, behind the sideboards - there would be a roach (or 5) under it. We paid the tenants to leave and did an extensive remodel, which took a couple of months, and probably starved those buggers. We moved in new tenants who are spotless, and I've not had problems ever since. Make sure the tenants are throwing out food waste. Target the pantry and ask them to throw out everything that's been opened for fear of contamination. And if they have pets ask them to store pet food in a tightly sealed container