You signed an NYC lease and found roaches. Photograph them before anyone cleans or paints, and email the landlord with the dates and locations. If you are renting in a building with three or more apartments outside NYCHA, ask for the signed turnover notice certifying that visible infestations were cleared before you moved in. File a 311 pest complaint if the roaches persist or the owner does not respond.
The First 48 Hours
Build a record before you start cleaning. A super who paints over dead roaches or glues a board across a gap leaves you with no evidence and the same infestation.
Take dated photos of each place you saw a roach, including inside cabinets, under the sink, behind the stove and around pipe penetrations. Note the time and the count each time, and leave droppings and egg cases in place until someone from the building has looked.
Leave the surfaces visible. Under Administrative Code 27-2017.6(a), HPD inspectors need only inspect the parts of a unit that furniture does not block from view, so stacked boxes can cost you a violation.
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The Written Notice That Starts Your Paper Trail
Email the landlord or managing agent the same day and keep a copy. Under Administrative Code 27-2017.2(b), an owner of a building with three or more apartments has to investigate for pests once a year, and again whenever an occupant complains or asks for an inspection. Your email triggers that second duty and dates it.
Put in the apartment number and your move-in date, where and when you saw roaches, a request for treatment by a named date, and a request for the signed turnover certification. Ask for a written reply.
Owner Duties Under the City Pest Law
Local Law 55 of 2018 repealed the old extermination section, Administrative Code 27-2018, and replaced it with Article 4 of the Housing Maintenance Code, now titled Control of Pests and Other Asthma Allergen Triggers. Pages that still cite 27-2018 are quoting a repealed section. Roaches, mice, rats and mold all sit inside the indoor allergen hazard rules HPD enforces under that article.
Administrative Code 27-2017.1 requires an owner to take reasonable measures to keep the premises free from pests and from any condition conducive to them, and to remediate the condition and the underlying defect. The standard is reasonable measures, not a guarantee of a pest-free apartment, so what matters is what the owner did and how fast.
Administrative Code 27-2017.8(a) sets out the work that counts. The owner has to HEPA vacuum out nests and debris, seal holes and cracks in walls, floors, baseboards, around pipes and inside cabinets, fit door sweeps that cut gaps to no more than a quarter of an inch, and repair drains and faucets that leak or hold water. Spraying does not substitute for any of that, and a pesticide has to be applied by a pest professional licensed by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, so the owner needs pest control that works to the code. The wider set of tenant rights in a roach case runs from the same article.
One clause matters when the lease is fresh. Administrative Code 27-2017.12(a) voids any agreement in which you waive the benefit of Article 4 and makes an owner who asks for that waiver liable for a misdemeanor and a civil penalty of up to $500 per violation, so a pest clause in the lease you just signed cannot sign away the duty to remediate.
The Turnover Certification You Should Already Have
Most new tenants never hear about this document. Administrative Code 27-2017.5(a) requires an owner, before you reoccupy a vacant apartment in a building with three or more units, to remediate all visible mold and pest infestations and any underlying defects, and to clean and vacuum any carpeting or furniture the owner supplied. Subdivision (b) requires the owner to certify that to you in writing.
The form is HPD's Lease or Commencement of Occupancy Notice for Indoor Allergen Hazards. On it the owner certifies compliance with 27-2017.5 by removing all visible mold and pest infestations and any underlying defects, then signs and dates it. It belongs with the paperwork a new tenant should collect at signing, alongside the conspicuous lease notice and health department pamphlet Administrative Code 27-2017.2(c) also requires.
Ask for the signed copy in writing. Either you get a document dated days before a visible infestation, or the landlord cannot produce one.
Pest History You Should Have Received With the Lease
Administrative Code 27-2018.1(a) requires an owner to give every tenant signing a vacancy lease a notice, on a form the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal approves, setting out the property's bedbug infestation history for the previous year for both your unit and the building. If you never got one, subdivision (b) lets you complain in writing to DHCR, which then orders the owner to furnish it.
Owners of multiple dwellings also file a free annual bedbug report with HPD between December 1 and December 31, and have to give each tenant the filing receipt on a new lease or post it in the building. The report filed in December 2025 covered November 2024 through October 2025, the newest one an owner can hand you in autumn 2026.
None of this covers roaches. Article 4 has no roach disclosure section, so the turnover certification and the building's public violation record carry the weight instead.
Breaking a Lease You Just Signed
Article 4 does not give you a cancellation right. It creates a violation against the owner with a correction deadline and the HPD and Housing Court routes that enforce it. The threshold for treating roaches as a lease-breaking condition is high and turns on the paper trail and how the landlord responded.
The 311 Complaint Timeline
Filing a 311 pest complaint starts the city's deadlines, and the code sets them rather than leaving them to HPD.
| Step | Who acts | Deadline in the code |
|---|---|---|
| Pest complaint filed with 311 | You | Any time |
| HPD inspects the apartment | HPD | No later than 30 days after HPD receives the complaint, under 27-2017.6(b) |
| Notice of violation served on the owner | HPD | Within 10 days of the inspection, under 27-2017.6(c) |
| Roach condition corrected | Owner | 21 days after service of the notice, under 27-2017.4(c) |
| Extra time granted | HPD | Up to 14 further days, on a request made inside the correction window, under 27-2017.4(d) |
Expect the treatment to outlast the deadline. HPD told the City Council in its FY25 indoor allergen report, covering July 2024 through June 2025, that 21 days may not be enough to eradicate an infestation and that clearing pests can take several treatments over months. That report counted 28,240 roach complaints and 39,480 roach violations for the year, and 4,654 of the 19,305 roach violations owners certified as corrected were found on reinspection not to have been fixed. For FY26, HPD said it would explore a longer postponement period for pest violations and finish a referral route sending buildings with pest violations to the health department for enhanced enforcement.
HPD mails you a notice when the violation issues and again when the owner certifies the repair, and asks you to get in touch if the condition is still there so it can schedule a reinspection. Answer that letter. If the correction date passes with nothing fixed, the next step is an HP action, which the nonprofit Housing Court Answers describes as the case you file when the landlord will not make repairs, with an emergency version for serious dangerous conditions.
The Building's Own Pest Record
The record tells you whether you walked into a one-apartment problem or a building-wide one. A single roach order against your line of apartments reads differently from twenty across four years.
You can search the building's records by address and read the HPD violations, 311 complaints, registration and legal actions on file, with no login. HPD's roach orders read as an instruction to abate the infestation consisting of roaches in the named apartment, under 27-2017.4. Across buildings with three or more apartments, Building Health X measures 30.1 HPD violations per 100 apartments citywide as of September 2026, 9.2 of them immediately hazardous, with 45.3% of buildings carrying none at all.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are landlords responsible for roaches in NYC?
In a building with three or more apartments, yes. Administrative Code 27-2017.1 requires the owner to take reasonable measures to keep the premises free from pests and to remediate the infestation and whatever caused it. Housekeeping does not transfer the duty, and 27-2017.12(a) voids any lease clause that tries to make you waive it. The article does not apply to NYCHA apartments.
How long does a landlord have to get rid of roaches?
The correction date on a roach violation is 21 days after HPD serves the notice, under Administrative Code 27-2017.4(c), and HPD can add up to 14 days if the owner shows inside that window that full correction needs longer. HPD itself told the City Council that 21 days may not be enough and that eradication can take several treatments over months, so expect follow-up visits after the deadline.
Does a landlord have to disclose cockroaches before you sign a lease?
No. The only pest history a New York City owner must disclose at a vacancy lease is bedbugs, under Administrative Code 27-2018.1, on a form the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal approves. There is no roach equivalent. What the owner does owe you is the 27-2017.5 certification that the unit was cleared of pest infestations before you moved in, plus the lease notice under 27-2017.2(c).
What if the roaches are coming from another apartment?
That does not shift the duty. Administrative Code 27-2017.4(b) treats roaches in any room of a unit or in a common area as an immediately hazardous violation, so a neighboring unit and the hallway are both in scope. The 27-2017.8(a) work practices require the owner to seal the gaps and cracks around pipes, baseboards and cabinets that let roaches travel between apartments, which is the fix that survives a single treatment.
What happens if I miss the HPD inspection?
You lose the visit. Administrative Code 27-2017.6(b) gives HPD 30 days from your complaint to inspect, though subdivision (e) lets HPD take longer between October 1 and May 31 if its resources require it, and says a missed departmental deadline does not void the violation. If the inspector cannot get in, HPD writes to tell you that no further attempts will be made unless a new complaint is filed. Refiling costs you weeks, so leave a phone number HPD can reach during the day and clear the cabinets and baseboards before the inspector arrives.
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