A tenant in Sudbury, Ont., says the cockroach infestation in her downtown apartment is so bad that she and her teenage son have started eating all their meals outside.

“We can’t really eat in our apartment,” said Miranda Thornton.

“I mean, right now I don’t have any food in the cupboards at all. It’s all packed in totes waiting for them to spray again.”

Thornton said she has had issues with cockroaches since she moved into the apartment in 2020.

The building’s owner, Whitehall Apartments, has paid to have her apartment fumigated on an annual basis. But Thornton said she believes the entire building needs to be treated to properly address the infestation.

CBC News asked Whitehall Apartments if it intended to have the entire building treated.

A legal representative for the company, headquartered in Mississauga, Ont., said it wouldn’t be appropriate to comment because there’s a pending legal matter with Thornton.

In December, Thornton filed a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario on an unrelated issue. She said it’s scheduled to go to mediation on Sept. 18.

Tenant says fumigations aren’t eliminating problem

After a pest control technician sprayed her apartment in 2020, Thornton said, her father pulled out the fridge, where they found “hundreds” of cockroaches that had come from the motor.

Despite annual pest control visits, Thornton said, the problem has persisted for years, worsening this year.

Her kitchen has around 20 sticky traps, with dozens of dead cockroaches attached to each. 

Thornton said having to deal with the infestation has taken a toll on her mental health.

“I puke when I find the traps covered with 30 or more roaches.

“You know, it’s very stressful. It’s like this is taking out my whole life right now. My family members, some of them don’t want me coming to visit them because I’m bringing cockroaches to their apartment possibly.”

Cockroaches can also spread harmful bacteria, such as salmonella, through their feces.

Thornton said each time her apartment is fumigated, including most recently, on July 16, the creatures eventually return.

Because she relies on the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP), Thornton said, she can’t afford to move from her subsidized apartment.

“I can’t find anything that’s as affordable as this,” she said.

“And also, if I move, I will be moving the problem with me. I’d have to leave all my belongings behind.”

Property manager concerned over apartment clutter

Thornton forwarded an Aug. 4 email from her building’s property manager, Melissa Rantala, in which Rantala raised concerns that clutter throughout the unit could impede efforts to treat the apartment.

“The technician’s service report notes that the amount of stored belongings, boxes and general clutter throughout the unit creates numerous potential harbourage areas for pests,” the email says.

In an email to CBC News, Thornton responded to the concerns by stating that she emptied the contents of her kitchen cabinets into boxes and totes in her living room so that pest control technicians could properly spray that area.

“I have many inherited things and family heirlooms, photo albums, books, clothes.

“I also think it is unfair that I should have to throw out my belongings because I moved into a building with an active cockroach infestation,” she added.

“I did not have a cockroach issue at my last apartment.”

Rhonda Lalonde, the manager at the Sudbury pest control company Enviro-Eco Solutions, which isn’t involved with Thornton’s building, said cockroach infestations are especially difficult to eliminate.

The insects tend to congregate in the kitchen, the area that’s most important to declutter before treatment.

“If we’re seeing a cockroach during the day upon an inspection, then I’m going to go right off and I’m going to do our most aggressive approach. And that’s called a flush-out,” Lalonde said.

A machine hooked up to a compressor pumps an insecticide into all the voids and cracks in the affected area, which is usually the kitchen.

After the apartment is treated, Lalonde said, her team will inspect neighbouring units to ensure they also don’t have infestations.

“We’ve done that with a few of our complexes where we’ve done floor by floor inspections.”

In some cases, they’ve had to treat the entire building.

Another tenant says cockroaches a recent issue

In an attempt to convince her landlord to fumigate the whole building, Thornton created a petition that she handed out to her neighbours.

Joan Mulcahy is among the dozen tenants — representing around a third of the building’s units — who signed the petition.

Mulcahy said she has lived in the building for more than 30 years and the cockroaches are a relatively recent problem.

“I was also treated for bedbugs about, oh I don’t know, maybe a decade ago. Bedbugs are far worse.”

Mulcahy said she has seen a few cockroaches in her apartment, but the problem isn’t nearly as bad as in Thornton’s unit.

“I went out and I bought an old-fashioned fly swatter.” 

Mulcahy noted that on Aug. 6, Whitehall Apartments paid for pest control technicians to inspect the apartments of all the tenants who signed Thornton’s petition.

“So they are doing something about it,” she said.

Thornton said technicians will return on Monday to spray her apartment again.

During the visit, she said, a technician raised concerns about a layer of grease — which is an attractant for cockroaches — at the top of her kitchen cabinets.

She said he was “telling us we don’t know how to clean, and he got up there and was demanding cleaning products.”

Thornton said the grease has been there since she moved in and that she and her family members have tried to remove it.

“We tried with baking soda, we tried with vinegar, we tried with bleach, we tried with Lysol, we tried with steel wool, like Brillo pads, with SOS pads. Like, it just won’t come off.” 

Zoé St Pierre, a staff lawyer with the Sudbury Community Legal Clinic, said they hear from a lot of tenants who have issues with pests including cockroaches and bedbugs.

St Pierre said the best course of action in situations that aren’t resolved on their own is for tenants to file an application with Ontario’s Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB).

“There are multiple tenant applications that tenants can file,” she said. “The one that’s specific to maintenance and repairs would be the one best suited to address a pest issue.”

However, she added, it can take a year or more for the LTB to hear tenant applications.