Cockroach Liability - Landord or Tenant

[jsmg2006]

My jurisdiction is: New Jersey, Salem County

Situation: We owned property for 3 years. Property is a duplex (side by side). Had previous tenants on both sides with no reported cockroach issues. We have done extensive work on both sides including basements and never ever noticed a cockroach and our contractor who has worked on both units for about 2 years also has never noticed cockroaches.

New tenant moved in May 2009. Within a couple months she complains of lots of bugs. She calls again and said house is over run with cockroaches.
She did bomb her side of house and our contractor (who happened to be at house doing some work) noted that all the cockroaches left her side and went to other unit (which is unoccupied).

Question: Who is responsible to deal with this issue? This is a property in New Jersey. Thank you for your help.

 

[Gail_in_Georgia]

What does your lease say in terms of pest coverage?

It would appear from your posting that your tenant brought in their own crop of roaches. Unfortunately, when one unit is treated, these critters simply more next door.

Both sides need to be treated at the same time. Here in Georgia, Palmetto bugs (flying roaches large enough..it appears...to carry small children off) are pretty common. We use a product containing Cypermethrin (i.e., Demon WP, Cyper WP) purchased online. Mixed with water and sprayed it is quite effective at keeping the numbers down.

While the landlord and tenant can argue on who is responsible, I've found it very useful for the landlord to make the effort to treat the area; if nothing else it gives a strong impression that something is being done (again, here in Georgia it is really impossible to kill ALL the bugs, just knock them down). It is also important to require that the tenants focus on their lifestyle habits (i.e., removing garbage quickly, not leaving open food out) to reduce the chances of infestation.

Gail

 

[jsmg2006]

Thank you for your response. We are treating with a pest control company and decided to handle with a one year pest control contract since cockroaches are so difficult to handle. We talked to tenant about lifestyle and how imoprant that we work together. Thanks again.