My landlord won’t deal with the pests. What can I do?

Get it in writing, get it dated, and get official advice for where you live. In many places landlords have duties around pests, especially when the problem came with the home or comes from the building. But the rules change by country and region, and by what caused the problem, so take your answer from an official body, not a forum.

Months of being ignored wears anyone down, more so when the pests are in your kitchen or your bed. Having them does not mean you kept the place badly. Cockroaches, mice and bed bugs move between homes, through walls, pipes and shared spaces.

Who usually fixes what

• Pests that came with the home, or that get in through the structure (gaps, drains, damp), usually sit with the landlord.
• Pests spreading through a building usually need the owner or manager to treat more than one flat. Treating one flat in a building full of cockroaches rarely holds for long.
• Shared areas, such as a hallway piled with a neighbour’s rubbish, are usually for the building manager, and sometimes for the council’s environmental health team.
• Pests a tenant clearly caused may be the tenant’s to fix, depending on the contract and local law.

“Usually” is doing a lot of work there. Your contract and your local law decide, which is why the official advice step matters.

The steps

1. Report it in writing. Email or the agent’s portal, not only a phone call. Say what the pest is, where, since when, and attach dated photos.
2. Keep a log of every sighting, every catch and every message. Our checklist on how to document pests for your landlord shows what to collect.
3. Ask a direct question: what treatment is planned, who will do it, and when.
4. Give a reasonable date for a reply, and chase in writing when it passes.
5. Go official if nothing happens. The council or environmental health, the housing authority or tenancy board, a tenants’ union, or an advice service such as Citizens Advice in the UK. Ask what the landlord must do where you live, and what you can do next.

Meanwhile, do the safe things that are yours anyway: food sealed, sinks dry, small gaps closed, monitor traps out. Skip sprays and foggers before a pest controller has looked. They scatter cockroaches deeper into walls and leave less to find at the inspection.

A message you can adapt

Subject: Pest problem at [address], please arrange treatment

Hello [name],

I am writing to report [cockroaches / mice / bed bugs] at [address]. I first saw them on [date] and have seen them [how often] since, mostly in [rooms]. Dated photos are attached.

Please let me know by [date] what treatment you plan, who will carry it out and when. If the problem is coming from elsewhere in the building, other flats may need inspecting too.

I am happy to give access and to prepare the flat as the pest controller asks.

Thanks,
[name]

When it comes from the building

If the pests come from the flat below, a neighbour’s rubbish or a shared bin store, write to the building manager or administrator as well as your landlord. Ask for the source flat and the flats around it to be inspected and treated, not only yours. Rubbish piling up in shared areas is something environmental health may look at in some places. More on this in cockroaches coming from next door.

Afraid of retaliation

It is a fair worry. Some places protect tenants from eviction or rent rises that follow a repair complaint. Others offer much less. Talk to an advice service before you escalate, so you know where you stand. Short, polite, factual messages protect you either way.

Kids, pregnancy, asthma: say so in writing. It can change how urgent the problem is and which treatment suits your home. Ask for insect bait in closed stations rather than loose, and for mice and rats to be dealt with by sealing the ways in, not open poison. Follow the label on anything used. For health worries, see a doctor or pharmacist, and read can cockroaches make you ill.