PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — Despite assembling an arsenal of pesticides and putting bait traps everywhere, roaches keep invading some homes in a Highland Park neighborhood.

Renee, the lady of the house, didn’t want to be on camera but she does want to see a recent migration of roaches check out.

“This morning my daughter gets up for work – she’s in the kitchen killing roaches,” she said.

When tenants vacated a property on North St. Charles Street, cockroaches began moving in to nearby homes.

“I lived in my last apartment for 10 years, never ever a bug not until they moved out of that house,” Renee said.

Neighbors confirm that they are now having roach troubles too. The vacant house is run down with trash in the yard and on the porch. Windows were left open.

A man, poking his head out of a window, says he was just hired by the landlord to clean it up.

In desperation, Renee called the mayor’s hotline three times and managed to get in touch with the Allegheny County Health Department.

“Initially, we were thinking of maybe a 30-day deadline,” says Allegheny County Health Department Spokesman Guillermo Cole.

The health department has already alerted the vacant house owner to take corrective action, but now they plan to ramp it up.

“In light of this new information that has come in that the roaches are now actually entering the adjoining properties and people are reporting that roaches are crawling on them that calls for an escalated response,” Cole said.

A health inspector could be on site as early as Wednesday.

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