Of Mice and Men: Are Your Tenants Responsible for Infestations? 

Are you a property owner dealing with unwanted “guests” such as bed bugs, cockroaches or mice? It’s important to note that pest control is your responsibility. However, what are your options if your tenants don’t collaborate?

If your tenants fail to meet their obligations to use the rental unit carefully and keep it clean, you can file an application with Quebec’s housing court, also known as the Tribunal administratif du logement (TAL). The TAL can order tenants to cooperate or even to pay you financial compensation called damages.

In more serious cases, you could even receive court authorization to end their lease and evict them from the rental unit.

Getting your tenants to cooperate

Despite repeated notices, your tenants refuse to cooperate and prevent the exterminator from entering and treating the infestation?

The TAL could order them to give you access to their rental unit. If they refuse, the TAL could allow you to bypass their refusal by giving you emergency access. Also, the TAL can ask your tenants to declutter their space and prepare the unit for extermination.

Example of pre-extermination preparations:  

• Keeping the rental unit clean, with no clutter on the floor.
• Keeping their clothes and other textiles in bags during the extermination process. 

Sometimes, eviction can be ordered

In serious cases of misconduct, the TAL may authorize you to end the lease with your tenants and evict them from the rental unit. This is possible, for example, when a rental unit is so cluttered and unsanitary that it prevents effective treatment of the infestation.  

On March 14, 2025, the TAL came to this conclusion in a case involving a cockroach infestation. Evidence showed that the apartment was so cluttered that it had reached “excessive and dangerous proportions” that prevented the exterminator from doing their job.

And even worse, because of the tenants’ negligence, the infestation spread to other units in the building.

On top of ending the lease and ordering their eviction, the TAL ordered the tenants to pay close to $1500 to the landlord.

Getting compensation even when tenants cooperate

Even when your tenants cooperate, the TAL can hold them responsible for an infestation and order them to pay you money.

For example, on May 6, 2025, the TAL ordered a tenant and her brother to pay their landlord a little under $1725. The TAL concluded that they were responsible for a bed bug infestation. The expert’s testimony in this case confirmed that the infestation started in the brother’s room.

The landlord also asked the TAL to end their lease, but the request was refused since the tenants had been cooperative.

In this decision, the TAL reminded the parties that the Civil Code of Québec statesthat a tenant can be held responsible for any loss the rental property suffers and must repair the damage caused by their fault.