I Wish I Used the “Drawers Rule” Sooner — I Could’ve Avoided a Roach Infestation

I’ve been a renter since I was 20, and in my past 11 years of moving around apartments in Brooklyn, I’ve come to learn a trick or two about how to make sure that I’m not renting a dud. For instance, I always look at 311 complaints for the building, check out landlord review websites, and inspect the window alignment for maximum sunshine and cross-breeze.

All of these rules were learned the hard way, after dealing with negligent landlords and sometimes even dangerous housing situations. But one rule I wish I had never had to learn is one that I need everyone to know about: what I like to call the “drawers rule.”

The “drawers rule” is simple but born out of a genuinely gross living situation. The “drawers rule” is as follows: Any time you tour a house or apartment to rent (or buy), you must take the time to open the drawers, as well as any cabinets or built-ins in the apartment, to ensure there’s not a pest issue.

Notably, this rule mainly works if you’re looking at empty units — which I have done for the last few moves. It can seem rude to look through an apartment currently occupied, so my recommendation is to ask for the current residents’ number to ask them questions one-on-one about living there to get honest answers.

I learned this one the hard way. Basically, the first time my now-husband and I were searching for apartments, we ended up getting rejected from the first few we applied to. (I blame our dog.) We were starting to feel desperate to find a living situation ASAP, especially since we only had a few weeks to move, a common rental occurrence in New York.

We ended up looking at a basement-level apartment in the same neighborhood in Brooklyn that would work. It was a rather large two-bedroom place with a pretty decently sized kitchen in a rent-stabilized building. What wasn’t to like? After looking at the place for only about 20 minutes, we sent in our application and bam, it was accepted. 

We were so relieved. Little did I know that there was one thing I should have checked before I moved in — and because I didn’t we were in for a world of gross that would scar me for life.

I moved into the apartment first — my husband was out of town and was going to move in a few days later. The first thing I usually like to unpack when moving is the kitchen, as I like to cook a lot and I feel like being able to eat at home is the first step to living in a space even if your bed is still in the living room. So after the movers left, I opened up a kitchen drawer and saw the horror … dead roach bodies. 

There were dozens of dead roach bodies. I opened another drawer, and there were more. I opened the cabinets, and again, more bodies. I was terrified, but thought maybe this was evidence of a past infestation. (How ignorant I was.) I pulled out the cabinets, cleaned them out, disinfected them, and bravely tried to tell myself that this was a fluke — or a onetime thing — and that I had dealt with the problem.

It was a lie. After my husband moved in, I went to bed early (as always) and he stayed up late. The next morning he woke me up to tell me he had killed no less than a dozen roaches — he called it going into a blind hot rage — and I knew we had a problem. We were only a week or so into our yearlong lease, and breaking a lease is expensive, not to mention the costs of finding a new apartment and, at that time, a new broker. 

We toughed it out — removed everything from our cabinets, got vacuum-sealed storage for everything, cleaned a lot, regularly put down roach traps and got regular exterminators — but at the end of the day, the roaches were the first tenant, and they would be the last. There was nothing we could do to get rid of them that could be done while we lived there.

We didn’t stay in that apartment for very long — and when we were looking for our next one, we made sure to do the one thing that I wish I had before. We weren’t touring the unit in person, so we had a friend who was looking at the spot for us alongside the broker to check all the built-ins, closets, and yes, the kitchen cabinets, for signs of life. 

Luckily, they found none, and we felt reasonably sure that we had done what we could (besides the 311 checks and so on) because of a few other key details about our apartment: The apartment was on the second floor and nowhere near any trash collection.  We have not had to deal with roaches here at all. We have no plans to move anytime soon, but if we’re ever back on the rental or housing market, I know the thing I’ll do any time I look at a property. I will open drawers. All of them. And I will closely inspect what is inside.