Pest Control Under Ontario's Landlord and Tenant Law: Who Is Responsible?

Under Ontario's landlord and tenant law, the landlord carries the responsibility for pest control in nearly every case. The Residential Tenancies Act places a legal duty on the landlord to keep the unit in a good state of repair and fit to live in, and infestations of cockroaches, bed bugs, mice, or rats fall squarely inside that duty. The landlord cannot sign it away, even where the lease claims the tenant handles pests. This page sets out who pays, what a tenant can do when the landlord stalls, and the one duty that genuinely belongs to the tenant. It applies to a Markham condo, a Richmond Hill basement apartment, or a Newmarket townhouse alike, and to the jobs tenants call about most, like mouse control in Vaughan or bed bug treatment.

This is general information, not legal advice. For your own situation, contact the Landlord and Tenant Board or a community 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 meet health, safety, and maintenance standards. An infestation of cockroaches, bed bugs, mice, or rats renders a unit unfit under that section, so treating it is the landlord's job and the landlord's expense.

That holds even where 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, so a clause forcing you to pay for extermination is not enforceable.

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

Is it the Landlord and Tenant Act or the Residential Tenancies Act?

People still search for Ontario's "Landlord and Tenant Act", but that law was replaced years ago. Today the rules for residential rentals sit in the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006, and disputes go to the Landlord and Tenant Board. In plain terms, the current law gives a tenant with pests these rights:

• the landlord arranges and pays for treatment, because section 20 requires the unit to be kept in a good state of repair and fit to live in;
• a lease clause putting pest control on the tenant has no effect;
• the landlord has to act within a reasonable time after a written report;
• a tenant cannot be evicted for reporting pests or asking for repairs;
• if nothing happens, a T6 application to the Board can lead to an order for the work and a rent abatement.

Is the landlord responsible for wasps, mice, and other outdoor pests?

Usually yes when the pest is in or on the building. A wasp nest in a soffit, a wall, or under a deck that came with the house, or mice getting in through the foundation, is part of keeping the property in good repair, so it falls to the landlord. In a rented house where the lease gives the tenant yard upkeep, a tenant is expected to keep the yard tidy and report problems early, but nests in the structure and rodent entry points are still the landlord's to fix. Report it in writing with the date, and keep away from an active nest.

Who pays for bed bugs in an Ontario rental?

The landlord. Bed bugs are handled the same as any other infestation under section 20. The landlord arranges and pays for treatment, and in a multi-unit building, a low-rise Thornhill apartment or a Vaughan condo tower, that usually means treating the affected unit plus the ones beside, above, and below it, because bed bugs travel through wall voids and outlet gaps.

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

Who pays for cockroaches in an Ontario rental?

The landlord, on the same section 20 footing. German cockroaches are the infestation most likely to spread through older apartment and condo stock, and they move unit to unit through shared plumbing and wall voids. That spread is exactly why a real fix has to be coordinated across units by the landlord, not tackled 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 hold. The roaches fall back to the untreated unit next door and return. Our cockroach control page explains why German roaches demand a building-level plan.

Who pays for mice and rats in an Ontario rental?

The landlord, on the same section 20 footing. 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 before they are a unit problem: they get in through gaps around pipes, the foundation, and the ground floor, common across York Region's mix of older townhouses and detached homes, 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 setting 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. Notify the landlord of the infestation in writing (text and email both 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. Report it to your municipality's property standards office. Every town in York Region, Markham, Vaughan, Richmond Hill, Newmarket, Aurora and the rest, maintains a property-standards bylaw that requires rental housing to be kept free of pests, enforced by that town's bylaw or property-standards department. A municipal standards officer can inspect and issue an order requiring the landlord to act. This is often the fastest lever, because a municipal order carries a deadline and penalties. Call your town's bylaw or property-standards line if you are not sure who handles it.
3. Apply to the Landlord and Tenant Board. If the landlord still does nothing, you can file a maintenance application (a T6, the Tenant Application about Maintenance) with the Landlord and Tenant Board. The T6 is the provincial form a tenant uses when a landlord fails to meet a maintenance obligation, and pests are covered. 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 way through. Dated photos, 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 is the tenant who wins at the Board.

Do not withhold rent as an opening move. Withholding 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, and none of it needs a lawyer.

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 your town's bylaw or property-standards line, Markham, Vaughan, Richmond Hill, Newmarket, Aurora, or whichever municipality you live in, and ask for an inspection under the property-standards bylaw.
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.

Doing these three things in order is what turns a complaint the landlord can wave off into a record the municipality and the Board will act on. It matters even more in York Region's older near-campus rentals and converted-house units, where a single infestation can move between suites that share walls, plumbing, and a basement.

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. Dated photos, 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. This is sharper in a growing apartment and condo market like Markham, Vaughan, and Richmond Hill, where a unit-by-unit patch job leaves pests a path back.

• Arrange coordinated, building-aware treatment quickly. Bed bugs and German cockroaches travel between units, so treating one apartment in isolation wastes money. Treat the affected unit and its neighbours together. A coordinated job is cheaper than a spreading infestation and a rent-abatement order.
• 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 municipal order deadline as hard. If a property-standards officer issues an order under your municipality's bylaw, it carries a firm compliance date and fines for missing it. Meet it. A missed deadline invites penalties 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, take 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 already 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 weaken a claim at the Board.
• Do the prep. Bed bug and cockroach treatments need the unit prepared: bag laundry, clear clutter, pull furniture off the walls, empty lower cabinets. If the pest company hands you 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 steering clear of 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 municipal property-standards complaint, and the LTB application.

Common questions

Reviewed October 2026.

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