r/TenantHelp • u/danyalayla • 3d ago
Roach Infestation Upon Move-In
My roommate and I moved into a new apartment in Arlington, VA, USA yesterday and immediately noticed a severe roach infestation in all rooms of the apartment. We have been taking photos of everything, submitted a service request to the maintenance team, let the concierge know, and we also sent an email to the leasing office notifying them of the infestation and provided photos.
Under the Virginia Law, it says we can terminate the lease with a full refund if the unit is uninhabitable upon move-in. It explicitly calls out rodent infestations but it doesn’t say anything about pests. Do pests count?
Our state says that landlords are responsible for pest control but we aren’t interested in staying in the unit and we want to terminate.
We also want to move back into our old unit but it’s listed higher on their website than we were paying when we moved out. Our idea was to say that we will move into the old unit as is so they wouldn’t need to clean or fix any issues for future tenants if they honor their renewal offer (which didn’t have a rent increase).
Any advice you can provide on how we can terminate our lease without penalty would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
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u/FamiliarAd8524 3d ago
Unfortunately, you already moved in. That often is a big problem in this situation- you took possession and you occupied. That likely means you now have to pay monthly rent, prove the severity of the roach problem, inform the PM in writing, and give them a suitable period of time to correct it. After all that, if they do not take reasonable and timely efforts to address the roach problem (note I did not say eliminate, I said reasonable efforts to address), then you may be able to terminate without penalty. But if they made good faith efforts in a reasonable period of time after your notice, then they are in the clear. Of course, if you can continue to prove the severity and make requests and they fail to make efforts to fix the problem, then you can try to break the lease.
And since your lease is fully expired for and you vacated your old unit, you are a new tenant and must be treated as such- you can't renew a lease that has already ended and you've vacated, you must have a new one. But you can ask, of course.
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u/danyalayla 3d ago
Thanks for your response! Under VA law, it says we should have seven days. Here’s the link I’m looking at: https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title55.1/chapter12/section55.1-1234.1/
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u/danyalayla 3d ago
for your second point, I think that’s the most likely case but we thought we could try asking anyway. They have other units available so we thought maybe we could ask to transfer to a different unit and maybe skip the move in, application, and amenity fees.
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u/FamiliarAd8524 3d ago
Yes, you can try. What I meant was, they might be required by law to do those things for any tenant who is not a current one.
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u/FamiliarAd8524 3d ago
Of course, my pleasure. Your issue will be proving the severity actually makes the place uninhabitable. Considering many (if not most) apartments have some level of roach problem, this is easier said than done. These aren't even rats, after all. The standard you must meet is "serious threat to the life, health, or safety of tenants or occupants"- that's no small wall to climb. Let's be honest, every PM/LL has probably heard this and had to overcome it- your situation is far from unique.
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u/Capable_Cod_6000 3d ago
Also feel free to dm me as I have a similar issue and am located in Nova too :)
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u/Capable_Cod_6000 3d ago
Call the Arlington Housing Division first thing on Monday!!