rodents & cockroaches in room: legal or any general advice needed!!

Submitted by Justawanderer0508 t3_z5p2p3 in boston

Hi all, first time poster here. English isn't my first language so apologies upfront if there are any mistakes.

I'm looking for legal advice as a tenant (not a US citizen, currently on OPT on F1 student visa, working in Boston): currently renting in Beacon Hill, saw cockroaches in my room (contacted landlord and took 3 weeks for them to send people in to just spraying bug killer sprays and nothing else), fridge has been broken on and off regularly (reached out 3 weeks ago and have not been fixed, reached out again last Wednesday and still no reply), and just saw rats in room today (reached out but currently no reply).

I'm hoping to consult if there is any chance that I can break my lease, and what the best way is to approach this problem for me to have a safe housing environment. Any advice is extremely welcome. Thank you!

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HeavyHorse1093 t1_ixydde6 wrote

Yea it always scares me when someone says they have rats in their house. There is a huge difference between a mouse and a rat.

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flackboxessanta t1_ixzcvwu wrote

For the uninformed (Def not me /s) what's the difference

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geffe71 t1_ixzdb62 wrote

Mice are inside, rats are outside

Also rats tend to be bigger and have longer girthier tails

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HeavyHorse1093 t1_ixzrkks wrote

Yea, rats are huge with a longer, thicker and scarier tails. Mice are the lil ones. They can grow to be big, but never as big as a rat. I know the difference, unfortunately, because I was really poor in 2001. So I had both mice and rats in the house. My uncle used to catch the rats wit bare hands and kill them.

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TakenOverByBots t1_ixz83ij wrote

You can go to r/legaladvice if you want the actual legal steps, but most important, document everything. Take pics of the vermin when you see them, save the emails or texts to your landlord. This kind of landlord seems unlikely to do anything. However, landlords CAN report you to collections agencies for breaking the lease and say you owe them the remainder of the rent, or more likely two months rent, which is what happened to me. You want a paper trail to show that you tried to fix the situation and the landlord did not.

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GreatWasabi t1_ixzpxzl wrote

This is a link to the Boston 311 page, which has a ton of resources about reporting pests, unsatisfactory living conditions, etc.

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DooDooBrownz t1_iy4m8ur wrote

your own personal ratatouille? your rent's going up for sure.

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