Is Your Landlord Responsible for Rodents? Rules in 8 States

Often yes, but in most of these eight states the duty comes from a general habitability or repair law that never mentions rodents. Florida, Maryland, Virginia and New Jersey are the four that name rats, mice or rodents, and even there the details turn on the type of building and on the notice you give.

Texas, Delaware and West Virginia require landlords to keep rentals safe, up to code or fit to live in, and Tennessee does the same in counties its landlord-tenant act covers. None of those duties names rodents, so a rodent problem has to fit the general standard. Most of the tenant remedies below start only after the landlord has notice, usually in writing, and time to act.

This guide is general information about state law, not legal advice. Check the current statute or a local legal aid office for your own situation.

Collect dated evidence first, then send a written request you can prove you sent. Photos, a short log and a copy of your letter build a record.

Start here. Photograph droppings where they sit, before anyone cleans up, with a date on each picture. Take close-ups of gnaw marks on cabinets, baseboards or food packaging, and note when you hear scratching in a wall or ceiling. Unsure what left them? Check how rat and mouse droppings differ, then follow a guide to cleaning droppings safely.

Then put it in writing and keep a copy. In Texas, mail it to the place where you pay rent by certified or other tracked mail while you are current on rent, since the tenant generally carries the burden of proof. Florida notices go by mail, hand delivery or, in limited cases, e-mail, Maryland counts a certified-mail letter listing the problem, Virginia's repair remedy needs written notice and 14 days, and New Jersey's housing agency advises certified mail with a return receipt.

Delaware's remedies run from written notice, and certified mail or first-class mail with a certificate of mailing both count, so keep the receipt. In West Virginia, get current on rent first, since a landlord there need not make repairs while the tenant is behind. Tennessee depends on your county (see below).

Texas Property Code section 92.052 requires a landlord to make a diligent effort to repair a condition that materially affects an ordinary tenant's physical health or safety. The statute does not name rodents or pests. It excludes conditions you, your household or guests caused, unless the cause is normal wear and tear.

The duty starts with notice, in writing if your written lease requires it, to the person or place where you normally pay rent, given while you are current on rent. To use the remedies, you generally need a second written notice after a reasonable time, unless the first went by certified, registered or other tracked mail. Section 92.056 presumes seven days is reasonable for the repair, a presumption the landlord can rebut. Under section 92.006, a lease generally cannot waive these duties, though a landlord with only one rental dwelling may shift repairs to you under conditions the statute spells out.

Once the landlord is liable, you may end the lease, repair and deduct, or sue for repairs, reduced rent, a civil penalty and damages. Repair-and-deduct for rodents is narrow: under section 92.0561, a local housing, building or health official must first have notified the landlord in writing that the condition materially affects health or safety, and an independent contractor must do the work. Do not just stop paying rent: withholding outside these rules can leave you owing the landlord actual damages.

In Dallas, Code Compliance enforces remediation of insect and rodent infestations at multi-tenant properties. Report one by calling 311 or online.

Florida Statutes section 83.51(2)(a) names rodents outright. Unless otherwise agreed in writing, the landlord of any rental other than a single-family home or duplex must make reasonable provisions for exterminating rats, mice, roaches, ants, wood-destroying organisms and bedbugs. Section 83.51(1) separately requires every landlord to follow applicable building, housing and health codes throughout the tenancy.

For a single-family home or duplex, the extermination duty does not apply, and the code and repair duties can be changed in writing. If you must move out for extermination, the landlord must give 7 days' written notice, cannot require you to stay away more than 4 days, and must abate the rent, though it owes you no damages. Nor is the landlord responsible for conditions caused by a negligent or wrongful act of you, your family or guests.

Section 83.56(1) lets you end the lease if the landlord materially fails to comply with section 83.51(1) or the lease within 7 days after you deliver written notice naming the problem and stating that you intend to terminate. That remedy points to the code duties in section 83.51(1), not the extermination duty in section 83.51(2), and a landlord's failure to exterminate cannot be raised as a defense to an eviction case. In Tampa, the city takes rental maintenance complaints online, with separate forms for up to 4 units and for 5 or more; its page does not mention rodents.

Maryland Code, Real Property section 8-211, the state's rent escrow law, covers residential rentals statewide except farm tenancies. It names rodents: landlords must repair and eliminate serious conditions, including a rodent infestation in two or more dwelling units. The list also covers any condition that is a health or fire hazard to the unit, but the statute does not say whether rodents in a single unit qualify.

Minor defects and nondangerous code violations are excluded. Notice can be a certified-mail letter listing the problem, actual notice, or a written violation notice from a government agency. The landlord then gets a reasonable time to fix it, and more than 30 days after receipt is presumed unreasonable.

If the landlord does not act, you may file a rent escrow action and pay rent into court, or withhold rent and raise the conditions as a defense if sued. Relief requires paying the rent into court, and in a tenancy of a month or longer you must not have had three judgments for unpaid rent in the prior 12 months. The landlord has a defense if you, your family or guests caused the problem or you refused reasonable entry for repairs. A court can order repairs, cut the rent or end the lease, and a winning tenant may recover reasonable attorney's fees and costs. In Baltimore City, renters with a rodent or insect infestation can call 311 or use the online CitiTrack system, and the Department of Housing investigates.

Virginia Code section 55.1-1220 requires landlords to keep up with building and housing codes where they materially affect health and safety, and to make whatever repairs keep the home fit and habitable. That section does not name pests, but section 55.1-1244.1 does: its repair remedy covers a serious threat to health or safety, including a rodent infestation.

Tenants carry duties too. Section 55.1-1227 says you must keep your unit free of pests and promptly report them, and you may owe the added treatment cost of an unreasonable reporting delay, or the treatment itself if the infestation was your fault. Once you notify the landlord in writing, the landlord must take reasonable steps to fix the condition within 14 days.

If the landlord does not act in that time, you may hire a licensed pesticide business to treat a rodent infestation. You can recover actual costs up to the greater of one month's rent or a fixed amount set in section 55.1-1244.1(C), after you give the landlord an itemized statement with receipts. The remedy is not available if you or your guests caused the problem, if you denied the landlord access, or if the landlord already fixed it. In Richmond, report code enforcement issues through RVA311 or at 804-646-6398, though the city's page does not mention rodents.

New Jersey Administrative Code 5:10-10.2(a) names rats: in a covered building, the owner must get rid of insects, rats or other pests whenever an infestation reaches two or more units or the common areas. Covered buildings must be made ratproof, kept free of infestation, and treated by qualified people at least once a year, more often if the problem returns.

These rules cover hotels and multiple dwellings, generally buildings with three or more units, so typical one- and two-unit rentals fall outside them. For buildings with three or more rental units, the state Department of Community Affairs takes complaints through its Bureau of Housing Inspection, including by e-mail at [email protected]; for one- and two-unit buildings, it says to call your local housing inspection agency.

Every residential lease also carries an implied warranty of habitability, the department's bulletin explains, so the landlord must keep the unit fit to live in for the whole lease. Before repair-and-deduct, rent withholding or rent abatement, the bulletin says the defect must involve a facility the home needs to be livable, you must not have caused it, and you must have given notice and adequate time for the fix. Its examples of those facilities leave out pests, and not every defect is a breach. If you withhold rent, the bulletin says to save it in case a court orders you to pay.

Tennessee's landlord-tenant law, the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, covers only certain counties. Metro Nashville says landlords and renters in Davidson County are covered. The General Assembly's summary of a 2021 law, House Bill 716, says a county outside the Act at that time stays outside even if its population later grows past 75,000.

Where the Act applies, Tennessee Code section 66-28-304(a), as the state Court of Appeals quoted it in 2025, requires the landlord to comply with the building and housing codes bearing materially on health and safety, and to make repairs and do what is necessary to keep the premises fit and habitable. Rodents do not appear in the text the court quoted, so a rodent problem has to fit that general habitability standard.

Section 66-28-501(a), as the same court quoted it in a 2011 case, lets a tenant recover damages, get injunctive relief and collect reasonable attorney's fees for the landlord's noncompliance with the lease or the Act after giving 14 days' written notice. In that case, the court affirmed the dismissal of a tenant's claim filed without that notice. In a covered county, put the problem in writing, date it and keep a copy.

Elsewhere in Tennessee, read your lease for repair and pest terms and contact your local codes office. In Nashville, Davidson County buildings must be kept clean, safe and sanitary, and you can report violations to Metro Codes' Property Standards Division through hubNashville or the Codes Hotline at 615-862-6590.

Title 25, section 5305 of the Delaware Code requires landlords to follow every state and local code governing the unit's maintenance, and the unit must not endanger tenants' health, welfare or safety. It does not name rodents or extermination, and the chapter's only pest-specific landlord rule covers bed bugs, with professional treatment due within 14 days of notification once an infestation is confirmed.

Under section 5306, if a condition takes away a large part of what you bargained for, notify the landlord in writing, and if it is not fixed within 15 days, you may end the lease. If the condition makes the unit uninhabitable or poses an imminent threat to health or safety, you may end the lease right after notice. Neither option is open for a condition caused by your own lack of due care, or that of your family or guests.

Section 5307 adds repair-and-deduct when the landlord fails to repair, maintain or keep the unit sanitary after written notice, either by not fixing the problem within 30 days of receiving notice or by not starting reasonable corrective steps within 10 days. The deduction is capped at the lesser of half a month's rent or a fixed amount set in the statute, and you must give the landlord receipts covering at least what you deduct. You cannot use it while you are behind on rent, or for a condition that you, your family or guests caused through lack of due care.

West Virginia Code section 37-6-30 says a residential landlord must deliver the unit and surrounding premises fit and habitable and keep the property that way. The landlord must also comply with health, safety, fire and housing codes, except where the tenant caused the failure, and make the repairs needed to keep the place fit and habitable. The section does not name rodents or pests.

Repairs needed mainly because you, your family or your guests lacked reasonable care are excluded. In buildings with more than one unit, the landlord must keep the common areas it controls clean, safe and in repair. If your lease gives the landlord a bigger duty than the statute does, the lease controls.

Here is the catch. The section sets no notice procedure, no repair deadline and no tenant remedy such as repair-and-deduct or rent escrow, and the landlord does not have to make repairs while you are behind on rent. So stay current, put your request in writing anyway, and talk with a local legal aid office before you hold back rent or pay for repairs yourself.

Treat a rodent complaint as the start of a legal clock, because most of these states measure deadlines and tenant remedies from notice. Log when each notice arrived and what you did about it.

The clocks differ. Texas presumes seven days is reasonable, Virginia expects reasonable steps on a rodent infestation within 14 days, Delaware's repair remedy opens at 10 days without corrective steps or 30 days without a fix, and Maryland presumes more than 30 days is unreasonable. Answer each complaint in writing so both sides hold the same timeline.

Multi-unit buildings carry extra duties. Florida's extermination duty applies to rentals other than single-family homes and duplexes, New Jersey requires owners of covered buildings to eradicate pests reaching two or more units or common areas and to have preventive treatment done at least once a year, and West Virginia requires clean, safe common areas. If signs show up in several units or shared spaces, plan treatment for the whole building.

Keep copies of tenant notices, inspection reports, treatment dates and the gaps you sealed. Most of these laws excuse the landlord when the tenant caused the problem, and Maryland and Virginia also do when the tenant refused reasonable entry, so log access requests.

Call a pest pro when rodent signs keep turning up, whether you are a renter acting with the landlord's consent, an owner, or a manager. A pro can inspect, find entry points, set traps, seal gaps and write down what they found.

That written report gives renter and landlord the same facts: where the activity is, which rodent left it and which openings need sealing. Without consent, a renter should hire a pro at the landlord's expense only under a state repair remedy whose steps were followed, such as Virginia's 14-day rule.

No pro can promise a particular result, so ask what follow-up visits include. Afterward, read up on how to know rodents are gone before anyone calls the job finished.

One last reminder: this page is general information about state law, not legal advice. Read the current statute or ask a local legal aid office how the rules apply to your home.