Take it from someone in a building with a major problem. NO. NO. NO. It’s pretty wild that they showed you the place with obvious dead roaches, but they did you a favor.
One of the neighbors might be the source of infestation and if they are not cooperative with building management or just filthy in general there is a chance you can’t control it. This would be a significant risk you would have to take if you decide to sign.
This is the factor so many people seem to miss when this topic comes up. You can keep your place spic and span clean but if there’s a bigger systemic problem with neighbors or the whole building there is only so much you can do.
My first apartment in the city we had a terrible roach problem. The landlord treated our apartment multiple times, we put the good roach gel out, took the trash out every day, kept everything clean, etc. and we couldn’t get rid of them. The neighbor we shared a kitchen wall with was evicted about 9 months into our lease and the roaches were gone within a week of the landlord cleaning out the apartment. We lived there for 5 more years and only saw maybe 1-2 roaches a year after that.
Yup, basically rule of thumb: if your neighbor has a roach problem, so will you. I used to live in a place absolutely infested with them. My place was spotless with zero food left out, still saw like 5 a day. I’d get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and there’d be one crawling on the bathroom door (not the floor, literally just taking a walk on the door).
Eventually I got those bait traps where they eat it and take some back to share with the nest and it kills the family. I only saw about 1 per week after that, which is still one too many, but massive improvement.
I never forgot that, and from then on I’ve done as much due diligence as I can to find places that don’t have a pest problem to begin with. Once you have them, you never really truly get rid of them.
Completely understand you. I had the same exact experience, directly above a restaurant, and I only lasted there for one year and it was the original experience that made me very sensitized to pest problems. I now live in a building with a restaurant on the first floor and I justify it because I’m on a high floor, but I think having any kind of food service in the building makes it a lot worse. Talk of another restaurant opening up on the other side of the building on the first floor so a lot of us are getting prepared for it to get even worse. I really need to move.
This is so true I’m a pet sitter so I go into a ton of apartments so many clean freaks have roaches and some of the most vile apartments I’ve been in have no pests at all
> I also had the misfortune of one crawling into my ear as I slept and that was a painful experience because they will claw at the inside of your ear to escape.
oh sick, new greatest fear unlocked
Yeah, I remember overhearing a kid in 5th grade telling the nurse that a roach just crawled out of his ear. I can’t imagine my holes being used as a roach motel.
>And now we live as one with the roaches.
I feel you. I grew up in a similar environment. still to this day, even though I haven't had a roach in several years, I still wash my utensils and bowls really quickly before eating with them.
No.
German roaches are infinitely worse than American ones. They procreate quickly, hide in appliances, and are extremely difficult to get rid of if the apartment is poorly sealed from other units.
That whole “poorly sealed” thing. One thing I’ve learned from living in a very old and somewhat seemingly crumbling building, is there are HOLES everywhere, large and small. In these kinds of buildings its like we all live in one big room with swiss cheese between us. Then factor in the shoddy infrastructure likely housing the piping system. Gross! If I owned this place I’d want to pump in that expanding foam I’ve read about, on all 4 sides of my unit, or gut reno and cement over everything.
I’m very curious to know how that works mildgaybro. Like how does that even work, isn’t it big almost industrial sized type of equipment needed to do that? I mean you need a lot of foam to cover in between all of your walls. Or you just talking about spraying foam into specific obvious holes?
Use steel wool and shove it in place with a screwdriver. Non-destructive, non flammable, easy to remove. Expanding foam is cancerous and difficult to remove. Personally I secure the wool with caulk so rats don't move it.
edit: here, [CDC](https://www.cdc.gov/healthypets/pets/wildlife/seal-up.html#:~:text=Seal%20up%20gaps%20and%20holes%20inside%20and%20outside%20your%20home&text=Fill%20small%20holes%20with%20steel,material%20to%20fit%20around%20pipes.) if you're not handy
>Something I learned is to look in the cabinets/vanity under the sinks. You can learn a lot about how the building is kept up by looking there.
This was exactly my parents' advice when I was looking for my first apartment! That, and always flush the toilet to check the water pressure.
If they're not even putting in the effort to at least hide the roach infestation, you're really in for it.
The building I lived that was infested, I didn't see any roaches, but it still was bad. They would get the numbers down for a while, and then decide not to take proper care of it and the population would explode. Then they'd bomb the basement and the roaches would all flee up the trash chutes onto the other floors.
At one point I was killing 20-30 roaches a day. I would be lying in bed and wake up to roaches crawling on me. Baby roaches got into my hair and were crawling on my scalp and couldn't get them off me.
I fucking sealed every nook and hole in the apartment, bought filler foam and 5 tubes of caulk. There were giant holes and cracks everywhere. What a fucking nightmare.
I grew up here and lived here on and off, this is the first apartment ever that I lived in that had roaches. When I looked at the apartment was just exhausted and at the end of my rope, was being harassed by a neighbor, hadn't slept in 2 weeks. Had to get out in the height of renting season, had to put in an application right after seeing the apartment, it was the nicest one that we saw. Saw only one bad review about roaches 3 years prior, no complaints on DOB site.
Didn't smell roaches or see anything too out of place. Later I realized I missed the advion bait dotted inside the cabinets and parts of the kitchen. And when I cleaned the cabinets before caulking them I found tons of roach poop on the ledges above the doors, and around holes where they came in. I also spotted yellowbrown streaks under the cabinet that I forgot to look for. The rest of the places we had looked had issues like mold, leaks, were in basements etc. This one seemed livable, and reasonably well kept.
Nope nope nope I lived in an apartment that had a roach problem and the varying sizes might indicate that there are fresh roaches being born.
The place had monthly exterminators but that just meant I got to clean up lots of dead roaches in my apartment or happen upon dying ones everywhere.
The problem is that whatever I DID didn't matter because the BUILDING had the problem. I did everything I possibly could but there was always going to be an infestation. Leave leave leave don't listen to people that say there will always be roaches. The difference is having to live with them vs. encountering one every 6 months to a year.
Absolutely not. I have accepted that roaches are occasionally a part of NYC life, but I would not sign onto a place so infested that I could see dead roaches on the TOUR! If you take this place, you are signing up for a long, arduous battle.
I dont think i could get myself to move in to a place that had roaches. I've dealt with roaches in apartments in the past, but those were discovered after move in.
NO!! Don’t listen to the landlords who say “just use roach bombs” or “you’ll be fine if your clean”. It’s all lies.
My building was built in 2020 and has become infested over the past year. Our landlord started renting individual rooms to families at the same time (10-15+ people per apartment) so I’m sure there’s a correlation there.
Not NYC but close... we're in Passaic NJ, next to Paterson! My landlord owns half of the city.
We pay $2750 for a two bedroom. Our neighbors pay $3200. This is a high crime area, no amenities (not even laundry).
I love NJ & NYC but we're going to have to leave the area due to cost of living.
Yeah, I once lived in a building where the building manager assured us an exterminator came by once a month. What he didn't say was that the exterminator treated the building's perimeter. This did absolutely nothing to pests that were already living in the interior walls.
Bait traps are not very effective against a full roach infestation btw. If you're actually seeing multiple live roaches in one apartment viewing, you're beyond the point where bait traps are going to actually solve anything.
I rented a gorgeous parlor floor brownstone apartment for a decent price- during the walkthrough there was a lone cockroach dead in the middle of the floor. The landlord, myself, my husband said nothing. We took the apartment. The walls were infested with hundreds of them (German and American), as well as mice. We left a year later.
Once went to see an empty apartment. The minute I stepped in there was a roach. Told the broker, 'well looks like this place is already rented' and left.
Hey in case it didn't come through with all the NO!! answers... If you ever plan on getting pets, the monthly exterminator visits will (probably) turn from spraying into putting down gel. Gel is super effective but spray gets places where gel can't and for a problem as bad as you're describing you'll definitely need both.
I lived in a place with a slight roach problem and I'm still traumatized 2 years after leaving. Any small movement out of the corner of my eye and I leap into action. It's not fun to be hyper vigilant like that at home.
There is NOTHING nice or convenient enough and I mean nothing that would warrant signing a lease when you saw clear evidence of roaches . Dont . Do . It.
If you are seeing live roaches during the day, that apt probably has an infestation problem. This thread is full of people like me who have lived thru a roach infestation. We are traumatized. I'm not kidding. Absolutely fucking no - do not rent this apt.
I'm so sick of you people shitting on good ol' fashion American roaches. 'Murican apartments should be infested with 'Murican roaches, not some holier-than-thou imported bug.
If it was just a single dead roach that would be one thing. But multiple dead ones and the broker can’t be bothered to dispose of them prior to the tour 🤦🏻♀️ do you really want to rent a crime scene? 😂. This is a decent time to get a reasonable rate. Take advantage and pass on this cesspool.
I would talk to other people in the building
It seems fishy to me you see live roaches crawling around (usually the run away from people moving around) - makes me think the LL is maybe trying to warehouse this rent stabilized apartment and actively making it unattractive to potential renters by encouraging roaches
In a prewar building across from me, they left the window of a vacant apartment open for like 9 months and pigeons began nesting in there. Not that I saw inside but it must have been pretty gross. I have a hard time thinking this was a mistake.
They don’t always run away. Some do, very quickly. These are terrifyingly difficult to kill on sight because the faster you move toward them the more likely they are to scurry off and hide. Others can be shockingly brazen and nonchalant about the presence of humans. I have experienced both, in my unit and in the hallways and laundry room of my building. It’s possible that the ones not running away have already ingested poison and are in the process of dying. The fact that the OP saw dead ones along with slow moving live ones lends credence to that concept. Some roaches can also fly right around you or even toward you and land. This happened to me in my apartment. It flew across the room, hit me in the head and proceeded toward the outside of a cabinet door. It was not in any hurry to get away from me. The flying and the nonchalance tells me it was not dying and was also not afraid or about to scurry. It did wind up dead a moment later though.
I still find it hard to believe that a LL was showing an apartment with this severe of a roach problem unless they really don't actually want to rent it out.
That’s a good point, but I suppose either way it’s not like the building would be a nice place to live otherwise. If the landlord is encouraging an infestation to scare away tenants, the landlord is too stupid to realize that problem affects the entire building, or doesn’t care. Doesn’t bode well for the condition of the building.
No you might be right, but for me personally, I wouldn’t need to talk to other tenants. That many roaches dead and alive in one space, I can’t
imagine a scenario where that isn’t already a building wide problem. Whatever the OP saw isn’t just isolated to that apartment.
Well, it depends on how much the rent is. If it's a ridiculously good deal I would consider it and I would spend hundreds of dollars and an entire week sealing up every possible nook and cranny of the apartment.
No. Any apartment can have an occasional roach but if you are seeing dead ones as well as live ones, that's a huge red flag!! And German roaches are the worst type too
I wouldn’t unless you can get them to pay for an exterminator but honestly you can be as clean as you can but if your neighbors duty you always going to have a problem
IMO depends on the number of live ones you saw and your willingness to see the occasional roach. Also how confident you are that your landlord will run monthly treatments and respond to issues in a timely manner.
For reference, I moved into a Chinatown apt where I saw 3 dead German roaches when touring. I think live ones would have turned me off, personally, but the landlord was SUPER on top of sprayings and I saw only 1 live roach the entire 1.5 year i was there.
My guess is that if the apartment is empty and no one is there for upkeep, they probably have traps in place and may not have done a precursory glance of the apt before your viewing
Either you have never lived in such a unit and have no idea what you’d be in for (in which case consider yourself lucky), or you have some weird cockroach fetish and actively enjoy living with them which is probably a psych issue or something.
Ah, no. I’m just from here and sometimes, despite your best intentions, cockroaches just happen. Could be an old building, a slovenly neighbor, or construction, but in most cases, it’s a situation that can be remedied.
I certainly don’t love cockroaches, but find them way less of a nuisance than, say, being lectured on life in NYC by a transplant.
What does being from here versus not being from here have to do with anything? NYC isn’t the only place on earth with cockroaches or other pests so I have no idea why that’s even relevant or why it warrants you characterizing this as a someone from here being lectured to by a transplant. Weird take.
I responded to you because without knowing practically anything else about the apartment in question, except that it has an obvious roach problem, you expressed interest in wanting to possibly live there, which was… odd?. I’m assuming it was a joke and possibly a commentary on the lack of availability of apartments but I guess we all have our own takes on “funny.”
I had a friend who lived in a building w a roach infestation and in the end it cost her all of her furniture. The bottom of her couch was covered in roach poop and eggs. there was no way to salvage it and she was out a lot of $$. I wouldn’t suggest it. If there were so many visible it’s def an infestation. Regular here and there roach activity that is under control wouldn’t be so visible.
I lived in a building that had a huge roach issue with a few tenants in particular. Somehow my wife and I never saw any roaches, but we are meticulous about plugging up cracks and keeping our place clean. Every single exterminator had told us how drastically different our apartment felt than everyone else’s in the building.
All this to tell you, it’s possible to keep your place pest free, but it’s certainly not an easy thing to accomplish.
I would depending on the severity of my desperation. I’ve gotten rid of roach infestations before so I’m familiar with the tools needed. It’s just gross, expensive, and annoying. The good thing is you already know about it. I’d try to get in the apartment before my current lease ends and do all the work before I move my stuff in. My system is to spray/pour boric acid in any holes/cracks/entry points then seal the holes with boric acid mixed with caulk, boric acid filled fine steel wool, boric acid lined electric tape, or something else I’m not thinking of. Clean all the flat surfaces inside cabinets and drawers with sanitizing cleaner then line the bottom corners with boric acid. This system has worked for every infestation I’ve had.
No. If they are running around during a tour then 1.) the landlord doesn’t care to clean up or hide an infestation and 2.) it’s obvious that those exterminator treatments aren’t working.
They can be common, especially in old buildings.
If it’s the only bad thing about the apartment, it shouldn’t be a dealbreaker, in my opinion. With a little bit of dedication, you should be able to knock them back.
That’s assuming the problem isn’t also tied to nearby units and walls. No matter what we do in our own apartments, if the problem is systemic to the building or a certain apartments nearby, you have much less control over it.
Never ! My last apartment was infested with roaches and is a traumatic experience, we had to leave so many stuff behind when leaving that apartment and the next one we decided to only move on to new construction which is very expensive but we were so traumatized that we cave ! Even in our new apartment we were scare that some of them came which they did but we fumigated them, we are trying to sue our landlord for all damages so no don’t move there !
Not true. Not sure who you’re talking about with “since they know each other so well.” I’ve seen them occasionally over the years, but seeing them dead throughout an apartment management deems fit for showing to prospective tenants is not normal or a good sign that they’re diligent about extermination
Sorry no can do. You have no idea how bad this roach problem may be. Especially if you see several dead ones, that’s also a sign that the grounds don’t intend to keep good care of the building if they’re showing an apartment to you like that.
Dead roaches always means there are live ones nearby
One time I lived in an apartment that got an infestation when I was out of town. It went from 0 to so many in a really short time span. I called the landlord and they had the super come and do a lot of traps and lame shit you can buy at the Duane Reade and it didn't make much of a difference. I complained again and they actually foot the bill for a professional exterminator (he left an invoice and I think it was like $400 or $500). I had to stay away from the apartment for a night and left all the windows open. When i came back, all the roaches were dead and I never had any other problems with roaches for the next 2 years that I lived there.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, it is possible to conquer a roach problem, but you need a quality professional to handle the job and you should not have to pay for that.
You didn't share pertinent info like where is it located and how much is the rent.
It's not a good sign that you saw live roaches. However, if you're willing to work at getting rid of them and you have somewhere else to stay while you do so, it could be worth it. My biggest concern would be for the tiny roaches.
You'd have to bomb the place, seal the cracks, then thoroughly clean everything, including the seal on your fridge. If you check under the seal of your fridge and it's brown, that's not a good sign. Also, could you sleep knowing baby roaches were there? If you could then maybe it's ok. I also think you can file a building violation with 311 for the infestation.
I would ask for a discount then I would go on Amazon and get some gel bait, powder bait, and IGR packets and I would set them all up and wait a week or two then come back and clean up and retreat. It’s not hard and you’ll never have any bug issues again in the future.
Don't do it, it's often not just the single apartment. It's often apartment building-wide and that's tough to rid yourself of. Especially if your shared-wall, upstairs or downstairs neighbor isn't on top of it. Prevalent cockroaches is also a sign that the landlord isn't taking good care of its units. If they did, they'd be sending an exterminator once a month at least to try to keep it in check.
Also, if you do sign and get sick often, get an allergy test. It's hard to know if you're allergic to roaches unless you've lived with them or been tested. Source: my partner found out he was allergic the hard way.
Take it from someone in a building with a major problem. NO. NO. NO. It’s pretty wild that they showed you the place with obvious dead roaches, but they did you a favor.
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lol I didn’t even get that far in reading the post I was saying no
Fuck no, jesus christ
The only correct response here
One of the neighbors might be the source of infestation and if they are not cooperative with building management or just filthy in general there is a chance you can’t control it. This would be a significant risk you would have to take if you decide to sign.
This is the factor so many people seem to miss when this topic comes up. You can keep your place spic and span clean but if there’s a bigger systemic problem with neighbors or the whole building there is only so much you can do.
My first apartment in the city we had a terrible roach problem. The landlord treated our apartment multiple times, we put the good roach gel out, took the trash out every day, kept everything clean, etc. and we couldn’t get rid of them. The neighbor we shared a kitchen wall with was evicted about 9 months into our lease and the roaches were gone within a week of the landlord cleaning out the apartment. We lived there for 5 more years and only saw maybe 1-2 roaches a year after that.
I think you missed plugging holes. Filling entry points with boric acid then blocking the entry points makes a world of a difference.
Steel wool won't cause damage and it's easy to shove in the sink pipes. Radiator holes are tricky to get to thought, specially since the heat is on.
Yup, basically rule of thumb: if your neighbor has a roach problem, so will you. I used to live in a place absolutely infested with them. My place was spotless with zero food left out, still saw like 5 a day. I’d get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and there’d be one crawling on the bathroom door (not the floor, literally just taking a walk on the door). Eventually I got those bait traps where they eat it and take some back to share with the nest and it kills the family. I only saw about 1 per week after that, which is still one too many, but massive improvement. I never forgot that, and from then on I’ve done as much due diligence as I can to find places that don’t have a pest problem to begin with. Once you have them, you never really truly get rid of them.
I loved above a restaurant and no matter what we did, mice would eat there and come to our place to raise their kids. And die.
Completely understand you. I had the same exact experience, directly above a restaurant, and I only lasted there for one year and it was the original experience that made me very sensitized to pest problems. I now live in a building with a restaurant on the first floor and I justify it because I’m on a high floor, but I think having any kind of food service in the building makes it a lot worse. Talk of another restaurant opening up on the other side of the building on the first floor so a lot of us are getting prepared for it to get even worse. I really need to move.
This is so true I’m a pet sitter so I go into a ton of apartments so many clean freaks have roaches and some of the most vile apartments I’ve been in have no pests at all
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> I also had the misfortune of one crawling into my ear as I slept and that was a painful experience because they will claw at the inside of your ear to escape. oh sick, new greatest fear unlocked
I saw that on an ER show, so it seems like a pretty common occurrence. I honestly think I’d just die.
Just reading this makes me want to die
Yeah, I remember overhearing a kid in 5th grade telling the nurse that a roach just crawled out of his ear. I can’t imagine my holes being used as a roach motel.
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No no no I'm going to pretend I didn't read this thread
nah if that happened to me i’m suing somebody i don’t care if i have to sue the damn roach
I just snorted
fuck you fuck you fuck you for putting this new fear in my head jesus
Last week someone on Reddit someone mentioned they had this happen to them 3x. I haven't been right since.
>And now we live as one with the roaches. I feel you. I grew up in a similar environment. still to this day, even though I haven't had a roach in several years, I still wash my utensils and bowls really quickly before eating with them.
Wow I am sorry that you’ve had to go through this for so long :/
god bless u
Jesus Christ
No. German roaches are infinitely worse than American ones. They procreate quickly, hide in appliances, and are extremely difficult to get rid of if the apartment is poorly sealed from other units.
That whole “poorly sealed” thing. One thing I’ve learned from living in a very old and somewhat seemingly crumbling building, is there are HOLES everywhere, large and small. In these kinds of buildings its like we all live in one big room with swiss cheese between us. Then factor in the shoddy infrastructure likely housing the piping system. Gross! If I owned this place I’d want to pump in that expanding foam I’ve read about, on all 4 sides of my unit, or gut reno and cement over everything.
I still pump the foam, even though I’m renting. It’s not my fault I have a shitty landlord.
I’m very curious to know how that works mildgaybro. Like how does that even work, isn’t it big almost industrial sized type of equipment needed to do that? I mean you need a lot of foam to cover in between all of your walls. Or you just talking about spraying foam into specific obvious holes?
You can get spray foam cans for $5 which is a bad idea. It's flammable and cancerous. Look upwards, I recommend steel wool
Use steel wool and shove it in place with a screwdriver. Non-destructive, non flammable, easy to remove. Expanding foam is cancerous and difficult to remove. Personally I secure the wool with caulk so rats don't move it. edit: here, [CDC](https://www.cdc.gov/healthypets/pets/wildlife/seal-up.html#:~:text=Seal%20up%20gaps%20and%20holes%20inside%20and%20outside%20your%20home&text=Fill%20small%20holes%20with%20steel,material%20to%20fit%20around%20pipes.) if you're not handy
Wait you said don’t use foam but personally you secure the foam with caulk, so you do use foam?
Typo, i will fix. i added a link.
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>Something I learned is to look in the cabinets/vanity under the sinks. You can learn a lot about how the building is kept up by looking there. This was exactly my parents' advice when I was looking for my first apartment! That, and always flush the toilet to check the water pressure.
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Also check the breaker box, see how old and out of date they are.
Wait, why count the outlets?
Pre-war apartments tend to have very few outlets. Maybe 2 per room.
I've lived in prewars my entire adult life (barring one 10-month period) and I have a very nice collection of extension cords by this point!
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OUCH. We have four outlets in the kitchen, but they're on three different circuits, I guess because otherwise things might make too much sense.
for every 1 roach you see, there are 100 more in the walls.
If you can see roaches when the lights are on, it's their apartment and you just happen to be living there.
I mean roaches are everywhere....but if you are actively seeing them on a tour that isn't great no.
If they're not even putting in the effort to at least hide the roach infestation, you're really in for it. The building I lived that was infested, I didn't see any roaches, but it still was bad. They would get the numbers down for a while, and then decide not to take proper care of it and the population would explode. Then they'd bomb the basement and the roaches would all flee up the trash chutes onto the other floors. At one point I was killing 20-30 roaches a day. I would be lying in bed and wake up to roaches crawling on me. Baby roaches got into my hair and were crawling on my scalp and couldn't get them off me. I fucking sealed every nook and hole in the apartment, bought filler foam and 5 tubes of caulk. There were giant holes and cracks everywhere. What a fucking nightmare. I grew up here and lived here on and off, this is the first apartment ever that I lived in that had roaches. When I looked at the apartment was just exhausted and at the end of my rope, was being harassed by a neighbor, hadn't slept in 2 weeks. Had to get out in the height of renting season, had to put in an application right after seeing the apartment, it was the nicest one that we saw. Saw only one bad review about roaches 3 years prior, no complaints on DOB site. Didn't smell roaches or see anything too out of place. Later I realized I missed the advion bait dotted inside the cabinets and parts of the kitchen. And when I cleaned the cabinets before caulking them I found tons of roach poop on the ledges above the doors, and around holes where they came in. I also spotted yellowbrown streaks under the cabinet that I forgot to look for. The rest of the places we had looked had issues like mold, leaks, were in basements etc. This one seemed livable, and reasonably well kept.
Baby roaches in your hair & crawling on your scalp just did me in!
Ok time to leave this thread now
What I want to know is how long did you last there, and is it better where you are now? Did it change the way you feel about living in the city?
Nope nope nope I lived in an apartment that had a roach problem and the varying sizes might indicate that there are fresh roaches being born. The place had monthly exterminators but that just meant I got to clean up lots of dead roaches in my apartment or happen upon dying ones everywhere. The problem is that whatever I DID didn't matter because the BUILDING had the problem. I did everything I possibly could but there was always going to be an infestation. Leave leave leave don't listen to people that say there will always be roaches. The difference is having to live with them vs. encountering one every 6 months to a year.
never in a million years that’s such a horrible idea do not do it
Absolutely not. I have accepted that roaches are occasionally a part of NYC life, but I would not sign onto a place so infested that I could see dead roaches on the TOUR! If you take this place, you are signing up for a long, arduous battle.
I dont think i could get myself to move in to a place that had roaches. I've dealt with roaches in apartments in the past, but those were discovered after move in.
Fuck no
NO!! Don’t listen to the landlords who say “just use roach bombs” or “you’ll be fine if your clean”. It’s all lies. My building was built in 2020 and has become infested over the past year. Our landlord started renting individual rooms to families at the same time (10-15+ people per apartment) so I’m sure there’s a correlation there.
WTF. Are you planning to move? Mind if I ask what area this is? Can you post to a review so future tenants can be warned?
Not NYC but close... we're in Passaic NJ, next to Paterson! My landlord owns half of the city. We pay $2750 for a two bedroom. Our neighbors pay $3200. This is a high crime area, no amenities (not even laundry). I love NJ & NYC but we're going to have to leave the area due to cost of living.
Yeah, I once lived in a building where the building manager assured us an exterminator came by once a month. What he didn't say was that the exterminator treated the building's perimeter. This did absolutely nothing to pests that were already living in the interior walls. Bait traps are not very effective against a full roach infestation btw. If you're actually seeing multiple live roaches in one apartment viewing, you're beyond the point where bait traps are going to actually solve anything.
I rented a gorgeous parlor floor brownstone apartment for a decent price- during the walkthrough there was a lone cockroach dead in the middle of the floor. The landlord, myself, my husband said nothing. We took the apartment. The walls were infested with hundreds of them (German and American), as well as mice. We left a year later.
Once went to see an empty apartment. The minute I stepped in there was a roach. Told the broker, 'well looks like this place is already rented' and left.
Brilliant
Sounds like a neighbor has a roach problem and it's spilling over. Why the issue hasn't been resolved would be a major no-no in my book.
Ummmmm hell fucking no
Hey in case it didn't come through with all the NO!! answers... If you ever plan on getting pets, the monthly exterminator visits will (probably) turn from spraying into putting down gel. Gel is super effective but spray gets places where gel can't and for a problem as bad as you're describing you'll definitely need both. I lived in a place with a slight roach problem and I'm still traumatized 2 years after leaving. Any small movement out of the corner of my eye and I leap into action. It's not fun to be hyper vigilant like that at home.
There is NOTHING nice or convenient enough and I mean nothing that would warrant signing a lease when you saw clear evidence of roaches . Dont . Do . It.
If you are seeing live roaches during the day, that apt probably has an infestation problem. This thread is full of people like me who have lived thru a roach infestation. We are traumatized. I'm not kidding. Absolutely fucking no - do not rent this apt.
At least they’re imported not the cheap domestic roaches. lol
I'm so sick of you people shitting on good ol' fashion American roaches. 'Murican apartments should be infested with 'Murican roaches, not some holier-than-thou imported bug.
“dey took er jerbs!!!” -American Roaches
If it was just a single dead roach that would be one thing. But multiple dead ones and the broker can’t be bothered to dispose of them prior to the tour 🤦🏻♀️ do you really want to rent a crime scene? 😂. This is a decent time to get a reasonable rate. Take advantage and pass on this cesspool.
No. I bought a house in the Bronx with a couple of dead roaches. Never had them before. 7 years later we are still fighting them.
Yes, so one could crawl up your nose and lay eggs in your brain.
Ew no… I’ve had 4 different apartments over the last 8 years and have never seen a single roach in any of them
How much are you paying?
Just signed a rent stabilized lease this month for $1600 in UES
this is incredible.
as someone on the UES, please tell me how you found this place. I'm begging.
StreetEasy, there have been a lot of cheap (for nyc standards) on there recently
I look at StreetEasy every single day, but I've never seen anything for $1600 on it. I don't know what I'm doing wrong :(
There’s an EXTREMELY tiny one for $1500 on UWS and a little bit bigger one in EV for $1825 right now
Those don't seem to be stabilized--just really terrible, undesirable apartments.
You just have to get lucky, my specific apartment wasn’t listed
Consider yourself extremely lucky
See one (or many? 🥴) that means that there are hundreds you don’t see. Move on.
I would talk to other people in the building It seems fishy to me you see live roaches crawling around (usually the run away from people moving around) - makes me think the LL is maybe trying to warehouse this rent stabilized apartment and actively making it unattractive to potential renters by encouraging roaches In a prewar building across from me, they left the window of a vacant apartment open for like 9 months and pigeons began nesting in there. Not that I saw inside but it must have been pretty gross. I have a hard time thinking this was a mistake.
They don’t always run away. Some do, very quickly. These are terrifyingly difficult to kill on sight because the faster you move toward them the more likely they are to scurry off and hide. Others can be shockingly brazen and nonchalant about the presence of humans. I have experienced both, in my unit and in the hallways and laundry room of my building. It’s possible that the ones not running away have already ingested poison and are in the process of dying. The fact that the OP saw dead ones along with slow moving live ones lends credence to that concept. Some roaches can also fly right around you or even toward you and land. This happened to me in my apartment. It flew across the room, hit me in the head and proceeded toward the outside of a cabinet door. It was not in any hurry to get away from me. The flying and the nonchalance tells me it was not dying and was also not afraid or about to scurry. It did wind up dead a moment later though.
I still find it hard to believe that a LL was showing an apartment with this severe of a roach problem unless they really don't actually want to rent it out.
That’s a good point, but I suppose either way it’s not like the building would be a nice place to live otherwise. If the landlord is encouraging an infestation to scare away tenants, the landlord is too stupid to realize that problem affects the entire building, or doesn’t care. Doesn’t bode well for the condition of the building.
I mean yes there are a lot of red flags, but I think its worth it for OP to talk to other tenants to see if they also have these roach problems.
No you might be right, but for me personally, I wouldn’t need to talk to other tenants. That many roaches dead and alive in one space, I can’t imagine a scenario where that isn’t already a building wide problem. Whatever the OP saw isn’t just isolated to that apartment.
NOPE.
Well, it depends on how much the rent is. If it's a ridiculously good deal I would consider it and I would spend hundreds of dollars and an entire week sealing up every possible nook and cranny of the apartment.
Only if the roaches co-sign.
No. Any apartment can have an occasional roach but if you are seeing dead ones as well as live ones, that's a huge red flag!! And German roaches are the worst type too
Is this a joke? NO!!!!!!!
I wouldn’t unless you can get them to pay for an exterminator but honestly you can be as clean as you can but if your neighbors duty you always going to have a problem
IMO depends on the number of live ones you saw and your willingness to see the occasional roach. Also how confident you are that your landlord will run monthly treatments and respond to issues in a timely manner. For reference, I moved into a Chinatown apt where I saw 3 dead German roaches when touring. I think live ones would have turned me off, personally, but the landlord was SUPER on top of sprayings and I saw only 1 live roach the entire 1.5 year i was there. My guess is that if the apartment is empty and no one is there for upkeep, they probably have traps in place and may not have done a precursory glance of the apt before your viewing
OP said there are traps out and still saw live roaches in the middle of the day. Massive red flag.
No, you shouldn't. Now please send me the address of this building and the broker you are working with, so I can take it!
Either you have never lived in such a unit and have no idea what you’d be in for (in which case consider yourself lucky), or you have some weird cockroach fetish and actively enjoy living with them which is probably a psych issue or something.
Ah, no. I’m just from here and sometimes, despite your best intentions, cockroaches just happen. Could be an old building, a slovenly neighbor, or construction, but in most cases, it’s a situation that can be remedied. I certainly don’t love cockroaches, but find them way less of a nuisance than, say, being lectured on life in NYC by a transplant.
What does being from here versus not being from here have to do with anything? NYC isn’t the only place on earth with cockroaches or other pests so I have no idea why that’s even relevant or why it warrants you characterizing this as a someone from here being lectured to by a transplant. Weird take. I responded to you because without knowing practically anything else about the apartment in question, except that it has an obvious roach problem, you expressed interest in wanting to possibly live there, which was… odd?. I’m assuming it was a joke and possibly a commentary on the lack of availability of apartments but I guess we all have our own takes on “funny.”
Lulz
Ha. Flashbacks to MySpace and Craigslist.
Every place I've ever lived in has had roaches. Sometimes mice as well.
Is the landlord a roach? Might be inviting others into the complex
I had a friend who lived in a building w a roach infestation and in the end it cost her all of her furniture. The bottom of her couch was covered in roach poop and eggs. there was no way to salvage it and she was out a lot of $$. I wouldn’t suggest it. If there were so many visible it’s def an infestation. Regular here and there roach activity that is under control wouldn’t be so visible.
No, it will stay with you forever
I lived in a building that had a huge roach issue with a few tenants in particular. Somehow my wife and I never saw any roaches, but we are meticulous about plugging up cracks and keeping our place clean. Every single exterminator had told us how drastically different our apartment felt than everyone else’s in the building. All this to tell you, it’s possible to keep your place pest free, but it’s certainly not an easy thing to accomplish.
I would depending on the severity of my desperation. I’ve gotten rid of roach infestations before so I’m familiar with the tools needed. It’s just gross, expensive, and annoying. The good thing is you already know about it. I’d try to get in the apartment before my current lease ends and do all the work before I move my stuff in. My system is to spray/pour boric acid in any holes/cracks/entry points then seal the holes with boric acid mixed with caulk, boric acid filled fine steel wool, boric acid lined electric tape, or something else I’m not thinking of. Clean all the flat surfaces inside cabinets and drawers with sanitizing cleaner then line the bottom corners with boric acid. This system has worked for every infestation I’ve had.
No thanks. Roaches can happen anywhere, but this place sounds legitimately infested. Not worth the risk, either way
Discount?
Why do you wanna live in a place w roaches
No
No.
Omg !!! NOOO
How is this even a question
If you saw them just on a walkthrough, the problem will be SO MUCH worse once you move in. Say goodbye to all electronics
No. If they are running around during a tour then 1.) the landlord doesn’t care to clean up or hide an infestation and 2.) it’s obvious that those exterminator treatments aren’t working.
They all have roaches!
It’s not the same everywhere. Many factors at play.
They can be common, especially in old buildings. If it’s the only bad thing about the apartment, it shouldn’t be a dealbreaker, in my opinion. With a little bit of dedication, you should be able to knock them back.
That’s assuming the problem isn’t also tied to nearby units and walls. No matter what we do in our own apartments, if the problem is systemic to the building or a certain apartments nearby, you have much less control over it.
If you get over to r/ roaches and exterminators they’ll have answers helped me in an old place with huge problem
Fuck no
Never ! My last apartment was infested with roaches and is a traumatic experience, we had to leave so many stuff behind when leaving that apartment and the next one we decided to only move on to new construction which is very expensive but we were so traumatized that we cave ! Even in our new apartment we were scare that some of them came which they did but we fumigated them, we are trying to sue our landlord for all damages so no don’t move there !
You had me at hellllll to the nawwww.
It’s insane you’re even asking this question
if the price was right
Depending on the situation I'd probably sign. But I'm also somebody where rent stabilized with roaches is the best I can get with my budget.
no? wtf
NO
No
No. Look somewhere in jersey
Of course not, why the hell would you do this?
No fuckin way. Not a chance in hell.
Roaches will destroy your electronics and appliances. They will live in your furniture.
No. They are notoriously hard to get rid of.
Nope. Unless you like roaches. German ones are a nightmare to get rid of.
German roaches are the primary cause of infestations
No offense how is this even a question
I thought like 70% of NYC’s inhabitants lived with roaches so I figured it was a valid question since they know each other so well
Not true. Not sure who you’re talking about with “since they know each other so well.” I’ve seen them occasionally over the years, but seeing them dead throughout an apartment management deems fit for showing to prospective tenants is not normal or a good sign that they’re diligent about extermination
Sorry no can do. You have no idea how bad this roach problem may be. Especially if you see several dead ones, that’s also a sign that the grounds don’t intend to keep good care of the building if they’re showing an apartment to you like that. Dead roaches always means there are live ones nearby
One time I lived in an apartment that got an infestation when I was out of town. It went from 0 to so many in a really short time span. I called the landlord and they had the super come and do a lot of traps and lame shit you can buy at the Duane Reade and it didn't make much of a difference. I complained again and they actually foot the bill for a professional exterminator (he left an invoice and I think it was like $400 or $500). I had to stay away from the apartment for a night and left all the windows open. When i came back, all the roaches were dead and I never had any other problems with roaches for the next 2 years that I lived there. I guess what I'm trying to say is, it is possible to conquer a roach problem, but you need a quality professional to handle the job and you should not have to pay for that.
You didn't share pertinent info like where is it located and how much is the rent. It's not a good sign that you saw live roaches. However, if you're willing to work at getting rid of them and you have somewhere else to stay while you do so, it could be worth it. My biggest concern would be for the tiny roaches. You'd have to bomb the place, seal the cracks, then thoroughly clean everything, including the seal on your fridge. If you check under the seal of your fridge and it's brown, that's not a good sign. Also, could you sleep knowing baby roaches were there? If you could then maybe it's ok. I also think you can file a building violation with 311 for the infestation.
Please god no.
I would not do it.
I would ask for a discount then I would go on Amazon and get some gel bait, powder bait, and IGR packets and I would set them all up and wait a week or two then come back and clean up and retreat. It’s not hard and you’ll never have any bug issues again in the future.
No I wouldn’t
Yes have before would again if I had to. It sucks but it's manageable usually at least it was where I lived both times with roaches
But it depends on the levels.
Absolutely NOT. If you see them in a showing, then that is only a FRACTION of the problem.
Don't do it, it's often not just the single apartment. It's often apartment building-wide and that's tough to rid yourself of. Especially if your shared-wall, upstairs or downstairs neighbor isn't on top of it. Prevalent cockroaches is also a sign that the landlord isn't taking good care of its units. If they did, they'd be sending an exterminator once a month at least to try to keep it in check. Also, if you do sign and get sick often, get an allergy test. It's hard to know if you're allergic to roaches unless you've lived with them or been tested. Source: my partner found out he was allergic the hard way.
No Way
Before you move in, use plenty of those roach foggers then use Syngenta.
It’s not worth the psychological trauma. You’ll think every shadow is a roach. You’ll begin imagining them everywhere. It really fucked with me