'Thousands' of cockroaches found crawling in Calgary apartment | Daily Hive

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What was supposed to be a routine move-out inspection quickly turned into a nightmare after a Calgary apartment was found crawling with cockroaches left behind by tenants.

Varun Sriskanda, owner of Sriskanda Property Management Inc., specializes in managing properties for Ontario landlords who own Calgary properties.

The apartment, located at 660 Skyview Ranch Rd. NE had been rented out for a year by some promising tenants.

“We look for quality renters, we look at income and credit score, and we talk to previous landlords… This tenant fit every single thing on paper, and just met all my requirements,” Sriskanda said when speaking with Daily Hive.

After the tenants moved out, Sriskanda sent some agents to look at the property, who discovered an abundance of cockroaches.

“I didn’t believe it. I thought they were playing a trick on me and trying to use AI-generated photos, but no, it’s legit. There were just thousands of roaches everywhere.”

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Sriskanda has worked as a realtor for around 25 years and says he has dealt with infestations before, but never this many cockroaches.

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“I have seen infestations of bed bugs. I’ve seen really bad mice and rat problems. I’ve never seen cockroaches in this amount… we moved the fridge forward to kind of clean behind it, and they just went flying everywhere. It was really bad.”

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The cockroaches were found in every room and even caused damage to the Calgary apartment when they managed to chew through the inside of the brand-new stove.

Sriskanda says the tenants allegedly tried to blame the building, but he says that’s not the case. The building is a new development from Truman Homes, and he says it’s unlikely that the building would have been the problem.

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“Based on experience, it’s really bad cleanliness. Cockroaches are attracted to food, filth, water, and if you maintain a really clean apartment, cockroaches have nothing to survive on, and they don’t stay there.”

The unit is currently undergoing fumigation. It’s been through two rounds already, but Sriskanda says more rounds of fumigation and some deep cleaning will be needed before they can rent out the apartment again.

“We don’t want to rent it to anyone this month, because we want to spend this month deep cleaning everything and making sure the unit goes day after day without seeing a single cockroach, and then we’ll be comfortable renting it out again.”

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