Question

What would you do?  I live in the basement of a wood structure apartment building.What would you do? I live in the basement of a wood structure apartment building. I work nights and there is 3 young kids living above me, so sleeping during the day is really hard. Some days I sleep enough but most days I dont. After 2 months of living here I found german cockroaches, they sprayed 4 out of 35 suites, 5 months later I found a couple more so the building bated. I'm the only one reporting them apparently which is gross. Havent gotten through to the landlord and tenant board yet to see if I have options there. I just replaced all my stuff 8 months ago after leaving my ex so that was expensive. My options now are to move in July which is gonna be expensive already, but to limit the chance of bringing roaches with me I'd have to throw out most of my furniture and small appliances and it's going to take a very long time to replace everything. No couch, no bed for myself or my son, no dressers, dining table. Or I can stay until I can afford to either move to another rental AND replace all my stuff which might be another year and will prevent me from paying off any debt. Or stay until I can buy a place and still replace all my stuff, and deal with the cockroaches, which might be 5 years ish. I'm struggling with the idea of living here because of the roaches and also because I hate my furniture, my place isnt me because I had to buy super cheap in order to furnish it. I dont want to wait to replace everything and hate where I live but I also struggle with sleeping on the floor until I can afford a new bed, sit on the floor cuz I dont have a couch. I can't deal with second hand stuff cuz now all I think about is roaches. Sorry for the long post.  

Answer 1

My husband works in pest control and he says if you don’t have pets to purchase some boric acid. Apply it to all cracks and crevices- do NOT put it inside of any appliances or outlets. You can also buy some gel bait from Home Depot as well. Plug up drains and any holes you might have in the walls. There isn’t any real way to remove them from furniture. But as far as your other items you can wash and dry them on hot and de clutter. However it is always a possibility that you may take them with you to a new place. Roaches are very hard to get rid of unfortunately. Best of luck to you!  

Comments

@moreau so get rid of my bookshelves, dining table, coffee table, beds and couch. What about my sons toys, his play kitchen, my pictures and decorations? I have alot of canvas paintings and alot of rocks/knick knacks. And pictures, baby stuff both mine and my kids. And books. I dont know what i can keep and what i cant, what i can do to minimize the risk. I know i can buy plastic bins and wash and dry all dishes and clothes before i pack them away and take them out immediately. Put electronics like my wii in plastic bags for a week or so.  

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My husband said it’s kinda hard to say what to keep or get rid of. And he usually doesn’t recommend for people to throw away their stuff because nobody can really afford to do that. What we did since our last apartment also had a roach and bed bug infestation (horrible nightmare lol) was wash and dry clothes, linens etc then store them away (we steamed everything too but that was for the bed bug issue) and we inspected all items and cleaned them off. It’s not a 100% guarantee but checking your stuff for traces of droppings or roaches themselves will help.  

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Also bugs love clutter because it provides shelter for them. So i made it a point from now on to declutter the areas in my home that I can and dust my bookshelf, my record collection, storage bins etc.  

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Sorry for all the responses but I keep remembering things  I can’t recommend those mattress encasements enough! When we moved into our new place we got a new bed and pillows and I immediately put on a mattress encasement and did the same for our pillows. They’re water proof and keep bugs out.  

Answer 2

There's no way I'd live with cockroaches especially with a child. Move to a place bug free, if you can't take everything, it's only stuff you can replace it later. Keeping your child and you safe should be number one

Answer 3

Get a box of combat roach traps and put them all over your apartment (there are 12) they will eventually kill off the nest.  

Answer 4

Can you look for furnished rentals?  

Answer 5

Move. When you do, have the two places overlap by about 2 weeks. Spray the living shit out of your stuff and bag it. Literally. Giant plastic bags, Saran Wrap, etc. Leave for a week. Remove furniture and air out for a week. Move into new home. Or storage unit with same idea.  

Answer 6

Move! You cannot live with roaches. You deserve better and you mentally cannot afford to stress over this.  

Answer 7

Have you tried your local Buy Nothing group? Could be helpful for helping you furnish for free  
https://buynothingproject.org/find-...roup/

Answer 8

Get a fogger before you move. Set it off in the apartment and leave. Come back 8 hours later. Vacuum your furniture and you should be good.  

Answer 9

For now try to use combat traps in different areas, I remember having to clean the behind of the fridge and microwave because they kept nesting there. So I just kept removing them (any appliance) and cleaning behind them plus leaving traps and the glue one as well. I got rid of them myself and back then I lived in a multi apt unit upstairs. it was like 2006, that’s the last time I’ve ever dealt with cockroaches, yay lol

Answer 10

I would never never never live with roaches. I don’t card if we had to sleep on the floor of a new clean roach free place

Answer 11

Roaches can cause so many health problems, I would NOT continue to live there. I’d also see if your city has a tenants council, and what your state laws are regarding rentals and tenancy. Your landlords may be responsible for putting you up in a hotel until the roaches are completely dealt with.  

Answer 12

Oh dear god that’s awful I personally would get out of there as soon as possible. I don’t have any experience with roaches so I didn’t know they follow in your stuff like that  but if you can just replace some things and move when you can that is not healthy to live their especially with a child, good luck

Answer 13

Put a roach bomb in your apartment. And leave for a couple of hours. Get someone to watch your son. While you clean up. Bag up ya'll clothes and take them to the laundromat and wash all that stuff. If you decide to move. And do ya'll have places where you can put your mattress set on layaway and you calculate how much you need to pay before you move

Answer 14

I know with bed bugs u have to replace your furniture but never heard of roaches of having to do that. But I would move. No being able to sleep when needed, roaches, and etc doesn't sound healthy at all. I mean if you are in the basement I can see why u have them. Or maybe request another one in the building

Answer 15

Could you stay in a motel

Answer 16

Being in south Texas there is no escaping them. We can go months and months without them and then we will see one. I call the apartment office get pest control out here and then we go another several months even a year. We keep a clean home. We throw all trash nightly (just me since I’m already walking my dog for the night why not). Pest control always finds the best behind my fridge. It’s moist back there because of the coils. Just continue to keep your place clean, plug up any drains they like coming up water pipes. Like literally we just saw one this morning. It’s been since like May/June of last year when we saw one last.  

Answer 17

Everywhere I've live you can't run from them but you can keep them out of your home in a few ways. When we rented our home it was infested in roaches and I refused to move in until they were gone which took about 2 weeks. You can get rid of them and ask the landlord to help by taking it off rent. Find a place to stay for a few days. Bomb every room in the apartment and leave for the day. The following day come put out sticky traps and bait hotels. Get a bag of buns or bread and some fire ant killer (pic in comments) and make a paste with it and water and soak the bread then throw it behind the fridge, stove and other things a pet or kid can't get too. The killer won't kill them right away from eating the bread but it will take it back to their nest and kill everyone. You can sprinkle all your belonging and home with diatomaceous earth also and bag up what you can with DE. In a few days bomb again. I got rid of all roaches before moving in and then cleaned everything with bleach and hydrogen peroxide. Lived there 9 months not one roach in sight and before we moved in they were everywhere.  

Comments

@postprandial this is simply the best roach killer! We had an infestation and with this they dissapeared so fast!  

Answer 18

I completely understand how you feel though. Our last apartment had a horrible roach and bed bug infestation (found out they came from our neighbors) and the landlord did absolutely NOTHING about it. We let our landlord know about the issues and he said that if the cost of pest control was going to be more than $100 he wasn’t going to do it! My husband and I laughed at how ridiculous and cheap this guy was. I also contacted the health department but they said that they would only come out to our apartment building after we made attempts to work with our landlord on this issue. I knew we had rights as tenants but it had already been a nightmare so we decided to move ASAP. Luckily since my husband works in pest control we kept the roaches at bay and we completely got rid of the bed bugs (in our unit at least). We got rid of furniture that had bed bugs and our new place has zero roaches or other pests. And we feel much more comfortable and at peace now.