Who pays for cockroach infestation?

ORLEANS TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD) - An Orleans Township neighborhood is infested with cockroaches, which the residents say are coming from a nearby trailer and spreading to about 12 homes.

The township held a special meeting Tuesday night to try and brainstorm some solutions to the infestation, and decide who should pay for the extermination.

Tensions ran high as residents and the title holder of the trailer, Bob Cusack, argued about the severity of the problem.

Neighbors of the abandoned trailer, at 2715 Cottage Drive, have complained loudly about the cockroaches swarming the trailer and the surrounding area.

"It's bad," resident Evelinda Onstott said. "It's really bad, and I don't think anyone realizes how scared I am to go open the door."

Cusack has sprayed the property, he said, and told a much different story Tuesday night.

"I seen probably one outside the front door," he said. "One in the refrigerator and one on the kitchen sink and thousands of dead ones."

But Cusack and the residents could agree on one thing: everyone wants the trailer removed from the area and sold for scrap. But before that can happen, health officials said the cockroaches must be eradicated. The county will pay for it, too.

"We'll make sure the trailer of source is properly exterminated," said Lisa McCafferty, of the Ionia County Health Department.

Pest control specialists made presentations, showing various products, baits and traps that can be used to control and kill the pests.
But it's a long process, experts said, that now calls for a professional and could take as long as four months at a cost of $350 per household.

Cusack should pay, residents said.

He'll consider, he told 24 Hour News 8, but "I do not feel like I should have to have this professionally treated, because I can do it," Cusack said. "I know what I'm doing right now. I think we have 90 percent kill."

The infestation came from the trailer's previous occupants who are technically the owners, Cusack said, because they bought the property from him on a land contract.

He wants to track them down, he said, and hold them responsible for covering some of the costs.