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Residents fed up with roach, bedbug infestation at Orlando apartment complex

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Residents of an Orlando apartment complex said they're sick of living with roaches, and now code enforcement is involved to try to get itthe complex cleaned up.
The problem is at the Metroplace apartments near Kirkman Road.
Metroplace has seven days to hire a licensed pest control company to eliminate the roaches the city found. Channel 9 found out that tenants can put the complex on notice and force their landlords to discount their rent or let them leave.
Code enforcement cited the management for not maintaining a clean property.
“It didn't look like this. This was a messy tenant issue when we were there. The roaches we saw are not roaches that limit themselves to one unit. So we're looking for treatment of the entire building,” said code enforcement director Mike Rhodes.
If the treatment isn’t done in a week, the city can pursue charges.
Management did not want to comment about the issue.
While the city's Code Enforcement Division will hold Metroplace responsible for eliminating the pests, attorney Mark Lippman said tenants can do the same by sending a written and certified seven-day notice to their landlord, detailing the problem.
"You would also want to tell the landlord that if you don't fix these things or cure these things, I then have the right to either terminate my lease or pay a different amount than I was set to pay for, generally less, or not pay anything at all," Lippman said.
The city recorded seven cases of reported roaches and bedbugs in Metroplace since the first week of June. The city has confirmed the roaches, but not the bedbugs, in at least two units so far, and said they might do a sweep of the entire complex.
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