Landlord or Tenant: Who Pays for Pest Control in an Ontario Rental

In an Ontario rental, the landlord is responsible for pest control in almost every case. The Residential Tenancies Act puts a legal duty on the landlord to keep the unit in a good state of repair and fit to live in, and that duty covers infestations like cockroaches, bed bugs, mice, and rats, the problems behind most calls for cockroach control in Toronto and bed bug treatment in Toronto. In a whole building, it is apartment building pest control, arranged and paid for by the landlord. The landlord cannot sign that duty away, even if your lease says the tenant handles pests. This page explains who pays, what a tenant can do when the landlord ignores it, and the one duty that does sit with the tenant.

This is general information, not legal advice. For your specific situation, contact the Landlord and Tenant Board or a legal clinic.

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Who is responsible for pest control in an Ontario rental?

The landlord. Section 20 of Ontario's Residential Tenancies Act requires a landlord to keep the rental unit and the building in a good state of repair and fit for habitation, and to comply with health, safety, and maintenance standards. An infestation of cockroaches, bed bugs, mice, or rats makes a unit unfit under that section, so treating it is the landlord's job and the landlord's cost.

This is true even if your lease says pest control is the tenant's responsibility. Section 4 of the same Act voids any term in a tenancy agreement that conflicts with the Act. A landlord cannot contract out of the section 20 maintenance duty. A clause that tries to make you pay for extermination is not enforceable.

Here is the provision itself, because the exact wording is what an adjudicator applies:

Subsection 20 (2) closes the obvious loophole: the duty "applies even if the tenant was aware of a state of non-repair or a contravention of a standard before entering into the tenancy agreement." So a tenant who saw a roach on the viewing and rented anyway has not waived anything.

There is one narrow exception in practice. If a tenant clearly and solely caused the infestation, a landlord can try to recover the cost, but they have to prove it at the Landlord and Tenant Board, and that is a high bar. Bed bugs and cockroaches spread through walls, shared laundry, and second-hand furniture, and pinning the source on one tenant is rarely possible. The default stays with the landlord.

Who pays for bed bugs in an Ontario rental?

The landlord. Bed bugs are treated the same as any other infestation under section 20. The landlord arranges and pays for treatment, and in a multi-unit building that usually means treating the affected unit plus the units on either side and above and below, because bed bugs travel through wall voids and outlet gaps.

Bed bug treatment is the most expensive pest job there is, which is exactly why some landlords push back. A single-room chemical treatment runs a few hundred dollars, and whole-home heat treatment runs into the thousands. None of that changes who is responsible. If you want to understand what the treatment actually involves before the conversation, read our bed bug treatment page.

Who pays for cockroaches in an Ontario rental?

The landlord, on the same section 20 grounds. German cockroaches are the most common rental infestation in Toronto, especially in apartment and condo towers, and they spread unit to unit through shared plumbing and wall voids. That spread is the reason a real fix has to be coordinated across units by the landlord, not handled one apartment at a time by individual tenants.

A tenant who buys store gel bait and treats their own kitchen is fighting a building-wide problem one room at a time, and it does not work. The roaches retreat to the untreated unit next door and come back. Our cockroach control page explains why German roaches need a building-level plan.

Who pays for mice and rats in an Ontario rental?

The landlord, on the same section 20 grounds. Mice and rats make a unit unfit to live in, so finding the entry points, sealing them, and clearing the infestation is the landlord's job and the landlord's cost. Rodents are a building problem more than a unit problem: they get in through gaps around pipes, the foundation, and the ground floor, then travel through wall voids and shared spaces, so a real fix means exclusion work on the building, not just traps in one apartment. If your landlord is only putting out bait, our rat control page and mouse control page explain what a proper trapping-and-sealing job looks like, so you know what to ask for.

What can a tenant do if the landlord won't deal with the pests?

You have four steps, in order.

1. Put it in writing. Tell the landlord about the infestation in writing (text and email count) and keep a copy. Date it, describe what you are seeing, and ask them to arrange treatment. A verbal complaint is easy to deny later. A written record is your evidence.
2. Escalate to the city. The City of Toronto requires rental housing to be kept free of pests, and there are two municipal routes. If you live in an apartment building with at least 10 units and 3 or more storeys, it falls under RentSafeTO, the city's rental housing standards program, and you report the problem through 311. For any rental, large or small, you can report a property standards violation under the city's property standards and rodent control bylaw. Either way, a municipal standards officer can inspect and issue an order requiring the landlord to fix it by a set date. This is often the fastest lever, because a city order carries a deadline and penalties.
3. Apply to the Landlord and Tenant Board. If the landlord still does not act, you can file a maintenance application (a T6, the Tenant Application about Maintenance) with the Landlord and Tenant Board. The Board can order the landlord to do the work, order a rent abatement for the time you lived with the infestation, and order them to pay costs.
4. Keep documenting the whole time. Photos with dates, your written complaints, the landlord's replies, receipts for anything you had to buy, and any medical notes if the pests affected your health. The tenant with the paper trail wins at the Board.

Do not withhold rent as a first move. Withholding rent can put you in arrears and expose you to an eviction application, and it is not the sanctioned remedy. The T6 application and the property standards complaint are the routes the system actually backs.

What to do this week

Start the paper trail today. If your landlord is ignoring pests, this is the fastest sequence that actually protects you.

1. Today: Send your landlord a dated written notice by text or email that describes the pests and asks them to arrange treatment. Photograph what you are seeing, with the date visible.
2. This week: If there is no real response, call 311 to report it under RentSafeTO or property standards, and ask for an inspection.
3. Keep going: Save every reply, receipt, and photo in one place. If the landlord still stalls, that file becomes your T6 application to the Landlord and Tenant Board.

You do not need a lawyer to start any of this, and none of it requires withholding rent. Doing these three things in order is what turns a complaint the landlord can ignore into a record the city and the Board will act on.

If your building is too small for RentSafeTO

This is the gap that catches people, and almost nobody explains it. RentSafeTO only applies to apartment buildings with three or more storeys and ten or more units. Condos, townhomes and private home units are excluded outright. So if you rent a triplex, a converted house, a townhouse, a duplex or a basement apartment, RentSafeTO is not your route and calling 311 asking for it will not get you far.

You are not without a route. You are on the property standards route instead, under Toronto Municipal Code Chapter 629. Section 629-9 requires all properties to be kept free of pests, including rodents and insects, and it applies to every property in the city regardless of size or storeys.

What that path looks like:

1. Written notice to the landlord first. Same as any other route, and it is what an officer will ask about.
2. Submit a service request to 311 (call 311, use toronto.ca/311, or email 311@toronto.ca) for a Municipal Licensing and Standards investigation. There is no fee to make a complaint or request an inspection.
3. An officer inspects. If the complaint is validated they can educate, issue a Notice of Violation, or issue an Order to Comply with a fixed compliance date.
4. If the owner ignores the order, the consequences are real: a set fine of $750 for failing to comply with a pest-related property standard under Chapter 629-49.6A(2), or a summons to court. The City can also carry out the remedial work itself and add the cost to the owner's property tax bill.

The tax-bill mechanism is the part landlords underestimate. A city that does the work and bills it through property taxes does not need to win an argument first.

RentSafeTO response times, if you are covered

If you are in a covered building, the program sets clocks the landlord has to meet on a service request you submit to them: 24 hours for urgent items (electricity, heat, water) and seven days for non-urgent ones, which is where a pest request usually lands. Submit the request to the landlord first, keep the copy, and escalate to 311 when the seven days pass without a real response. The expired clock is useful evidence later.

What can the Landlord and Tenant Board order?

Real remedies, not just a scolding. When a tenant files a T6 and proves the landlord failed to deal with an infestation, the Landlord and Tenant Board can order any of the following.

• The work done. An order requiring the landlord to arrange and pay for professional treatment, usually on a fixed timeline.
• A rent abatement. Money back for the period you lived with the infestation. The Board sets an abatement as a percentage of your rent tied to how badly the problem affected your use of the unit, and for a serious, drawn-out infestation that can be a meaningful share of the rent for those months.
• Reimbursement of your costs. Out-of-pocket money you spent because of the landlord's failure, such as your own extermination receipts, replaced furniture, or extra laundry.
• Repairs by a set date, and in serious cases a fine paid to the Board on top of your remedy.

The size of an abatement turns on your evidence, which is why the paper trail matters so much. Photos with dates, written complaints, and the landlord's replies are what move a hearing.

If you are the landlord: how to handle it right

Act fast and document everything. The law puts the cost on you in almost every case, so the winning move is not to fight it but to resolve it before it spreads and before it reaches the Board.

• Arrange professional treatment quickly. A coordinated, building-aware treatment is cheaper than a spreading infestation and a rent-abatement order. Bed bugs and German cockroaches travel between units, so treating one apartment in isolation wastes money. Treat the affected unit and its neighbours together.
• Document your reasonable steps. Keep records of when you were notified, when you booked treatment, the pest company's reports, and any follow-up visits. If a tenant later claims you did nothing, those records are your defence at the LTB.
• Give proper entry notice. You or your pest company can enter to treat with 24 hours' written notice stating the time. Skipping notice can derail a treatment and hand the tenant a complaint.
• Treat a city order as a hard deadline. If a municipal standards officer issues an order, it carries a firm compliance date. Missing it invites fines and strengthens any tenant application.
• Only pursue a tenant for the cost if you can genuinely prove sole cause, and even then through the Board, not by billing them or touching a deposit. In a multi-unit building that proof is rarely available.

When the crew needs to be coordinated across several units on a real deadline, that is the kind of job our service partner Insectica handles day to day.

Can a landlord charge the tenant for pest control?

Only in the narrow case where they can prove at the LTB that the tenant alone caused the infestation, and they have to go to the Board to do it. A landlord cannot simply add an extermination charge to your account, deduct it from your deposit, or bill you directly because the lease says so. That lease term is void under section 4 of the Act.

If a landlord has charged you or is threatening to, that is exactly the situation to raise with the Landlord and Tenant Board or a community legal clinic.

What is the tenant actually responsible for?

Cooperation, and this part matters. A tenant has a duty to keep the unit reasonably clean and to allow and support the treatment. In practice that means:

• Let the exterminator in. The landlord (or their pest company) can enter with 24 hours' written notice to carry out the treatment. Blocking access can shift responsibility onto you and undermine a claim at the Board.
• Do the prep. Bed bug and cockroach treatments need the unit prepared, bag laundry, clear clutter, pull furniture from walls, empty lower cabinets. If the pest company gives a prep sheet, follow it. A treatment on an unprepared unit fails, and repeat failures caused by no prep can land on the tenant.
• Don't make it worse. Keeping food sealed, taking out garbage, and not bringing in infested second-hand furniture are reasonable tenant duties.

The rule of thumb: the landlord pays for and arranges the treatment, and the tenant makes the unit ready and lets the work happen. When both sides do their part, infestations get cleared. When the landlord stalls, the tenant's tools are the written notice, the 311 complaint, and the LTB application.

Common questions

Reviewed August 2026.

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