VL
Victoria Lawrence
Aug 1, 2026
I have a housing voucher. Prior to moving in, the county inspector found cockroaches in the apartment. I was not able to move in until they completed profession post control treatment. They assured the inspector that was complete, he visited the unit, saw no cockroaches, so I signed my lease. When I entered the unit after getting my keys, I found it was filthy. The were dead roaches in 2 of the window sills, the bathtubs still had residue from previous tenants bath products and mildew on the walls. There was hair from someone's razor in the medicine cabinet. And it smells weird and gross. I brought this to the manager's attention. They hired cleaners and I waited another 3 days to start moving. The cleaners left my bathtub dripping, and the weird smell persists. After beginning to move my things in, I left for about 5 days to go camping. When I returned, I found a cockroach crawling up my wall. I sent pics to the manager and they said they'd send post control back. I brought this to the attention of my housing case manager. She forwarded it to the inspector for insight. We all sent messages to the property manager stating we believed, based on clear evidence, that the infestation is coming from a neighboring unit, so those must be inspected and treated as well. At this time I also demanded to see inspection reports from the first treatments. The property manager sent them but dodged the messages about inspecting neighboring units for over a week until I persisted. Their response was simply that they have and will follow the recommendations of their post control company, who they will continue to go through for this service. So I read the reports and did some research. The reports indicate they never inspected and didn't plan to, other units or even the entire unit I rented. They only sprayed an area behind the fridge and some baseboard cracks -which are where the inspector saw live roaches originally. And when they came back, they did nothing. But according to everything I've read, what multiple reputable pest control companies, and the county inspector as well as HUD - what was done is NOT industry standard nor effective at eradicating cockroaches, especially in an apartment building. Everything I've read and everyone I've spoken to says the neighboring units and shared walls will for sure be infested, and must be treated even if none are seen. Furthermore, treatment requires a multi-tired approach as well as 2-3 treatment at minimum, to kill adults, hatched eggs, and any that may have been missed in the process. I also was told that apartments will sometimes use contracted services who will do sub par work like this for a reduced rate, in effort to mask a problem for the sake of turning over a unit quickly. At every juncture in this experience, the manager had been very quick to offer me an exit from my lease without penalty. In fact, they've pushed it harder than being willing to step up their post control efforts. Unfortunately because I use a housing voucher, it's not that simple for me. But from every bit of research I've done, I believe the roaches will appear again, because they aren't really gone. Neither is that icky smell. So while i have an apartment, I remain homeless, waiting for something to be done to make this right, and waiting previous months of my voucher. Hopefully I'll be able to move soon. But I'm for sure not putting anything else I own in the apartment because I don't want to bring roaches to the next.
I just want a clean, pest-free home - which county, state, and federal law states that I am entitled to. Still waiting....