America’s roach and rat hotspots revealed, according to renters – Indiana in the top 10

New data has identified in which states renters complain about dealing with rat and roach infestations the most, with Arizona being named the nation’s pest hotspot.

The findings come from moving resource site moveBuddha, after analyzing renter reviews submitted to the Rate The Landlord database, where tenants score property providers across five categories: health and safety, respect, tenant privacy, repairs, and rental stability.

From here, the proportion of reviews mentioning ‘roaches,’ ‘rats,’ and ‘pests’ were compared to the total number of reviews left in each state to see where tenants complain most. Rat and roach infestations are serious and urgently require intervention to avoid significant property damage, allergies, or the spreading of bacteria that can cause disease. However, many landlords fail to address the issue adequately or within a reasonable timeframe, likely due to a reluctance to pay for costly pest control treatments or a preference for quick-fix solutions that don’t address the root cause of infestation.

This is clearly an issue for many renters across the US, with more than three-quarters (76%) of states (12 out of 50) receiving reviews that mention at least one type of infestation.

And it turns out that renters in Arizona are the most likely to be plagued by pests, with 18.4% of reviews mentioning an infestation – primarily roaches. This is a huge 167% higher than the average proportion of reviews mentioning pests across all states (6.9%).

Indiana checks in with 12.0% of reviews mentioning an infestation and 74% higher than the average proportion of reviews mentioning pests across all states. That ranks Indiana 10th among the 50 states.