HERSCHEL J SMITH    |    St petersburg    ,    Florida 33701    Landlord Complaint 20-1940

My boyfriend and I moved to St Petersburg, Fl from Sebastian, FL into a building advertised as a room share. We did not sign a lease, but paid 450 dollars upfront for a months rent. When we arrived, we found ourselves in a bedroom, in which we have to share three bathrooms, one of which (on our floor) is constantly out of order, and a kitchen, with at least 16 other tenants. We soon discovered our room had a bedbug infestation, as well as a cockroach problem. We have seen many other bugs all over the building as well. We were not informed that there was any sort of bug problem--at all. I myself went and bought 4 cans of bed bug spray, which totaled to almost thirty dollars, and was refused to be compensated. We called and told the woman who helps run the building about the problem, and she said that they would send someone over to spray down the room. It was a tenant who lives across from us, and she didn't come until we had to call again. She finally came, and sprayed the room with alcohol, and we had to help with moving items out, and had to vacuum the room ourselves. I borrowed a steamer from a friend as well to try and help out with this problem, as well as purchasing ten pounds of Diatomaceous earth, which should arrive within the next few days. I will not be compensated for this either. We spent 12 dollars to wash every single piece of our laundry. This morning, about a week later, after feeling very hopeful about our situation, I killed two bedbugs. The AC has been broken for about 3 days now, and no one has even bothered with it. They keep telling us ANOTHER tenant just needs to fix it. The people who run this building are NOT the owners, and we have never met or heard of the owner until research was done online. We are both extremely upset, and feel unsafe in this situation.