CUBA, N.Y. -- Valerie Allen says she's spent the last few months trying to get a tenant out of her building. She says he wouldn't pick up, and would leave garbage in the hallway.

"In the last six months, you could smell it in the barbershop and in my office, and we'd be like 'hey, you've gotta clean up. I am, I am," said Allen, the wife of the apartment owner.

After problems continued, Allen evicted the tenant on September 2nd, and gave him two weeks to remove his items. Last Monday, she got access to the apartment.

"It is a hoarder's paradise in there," she said.

The apartment is next door to the Cuba Village Hall. Mayor Michele Miller (D) saw the aftermath.

"The tenant left, was moving out, just last week, and in the process of moving, stirred up all of the cockroaches, left furniture and belongings in the stairwell, and threw them out the back window," Miller said.

The Kopper Keg restaurant is on the other side of the apartment. Owners Michael and Ellen Shawl saw cockroaches in the street and felt they only had one course of action.

"At one o'clock in the afternoon, we decided we needed to shut down as a preventative measure, and see how this unfolds, the Shawls said.

Allen says it's been a frustrating process to evict her tenant. She faults the Village Code Enforcer for not coming out in a timely manner to assist. Mayor Miller, meanwhile, says according to the Village Attorney, responsibility lies with building owner. The Shawls say they saw a cockroach on the sidewalk in August that they believed was from the neighboring apartment, and reported it to the village. They're frustrated this saga has gone on so long, and has now affected their livelihood.

"We have 14 employees who are now unemployed, and we have no answer for them. 14 people who worked diligently and we don't know what to tell them," they said.

In the meantime, Miller says exterminators have been here daily, and have put out a white powder substance outside of buildings on the block to repel the cockroaches from going inside.