Apartment hunting isn't only about safety anymore :/ (Bedford, Pelham: apartments, homes)

[EmeraldNYC]

Writing this thread, I want to be clear that I am not bashing anyones neighborhood or implying that you are dirty or ignorant.

Me and my fiance went apartment hunting recently in the Bronx and we of course looked at apartment in safer neighborhoods now that we can afford it and were surprised with the amount of buildings that have had serious problems with vermin and insects, especially bed bugs. Now I am aware people all over the country suffer from bed bugs but out of 7 apartments we went to see in the Woodlawn/Riverdale/ Pelham pkwy area, 5 of them confessed to having had bed bug infestations in the recent past. I am from Bedford Park and this neighborhood has seriously gone down the tiolet. There is violence escalating with the local street gangs and more talk of bed bug infestations in the area. Just the other day a woman downstairs in my building stopped me and outright asked me if I had roaches or bed bugs in my apartment. It was an odd confrontation to say the least. I informed her I have never seen any bed bugs and the few roaches we do see are controlled by the roach traps we put up around the apartment. I think problems like insect infestation is unavoidable because of families moving from other places, and the amount of travel we NYorkers do but it is just a sad thought that you could work and try so hard to live in a good neighborhood, to then be plagued by such a nuisance, which I have heard is very expensive to maintain, much less get rid of.

[SobroGuy]

I was not aware that the Bronx was higher than average in bed bug infestations in NYC. It could be that you are just having bad luck with the buildings you find. To be fair, it only takes 1 apt with roaches/bed bugs/mice etc to infest the whole building with these problems, and if that person is not vigilant or does not allow the LL access to eliminate the problem, well...the entire building is basically screwed.

All I can say is that if you are having trouble finding an apt which is free of these issues, KEEP LOOKING AND DONT SETTLE. You would probably have much better luck in a lower density building, like a 2 or 3 family homes, as there are far less apts/potential for problems when you are only dealing with 1 or 2 other units in the property. When you deal with the larger 5 story walk-ups, you get all kinds of people from everywhere moving in and out, much less control, and much less involvement typically by ownership than the smaller buildings.