UTICA, N.Y. (WKTV) - Cockroaches have taken over a house in West Utica, upsetting neighbors. People who live near 1226 Parker Street say the problem is spreading.

"I was over there one time and I said I will go there no more because it's loaded with cockroaches," says next door neighbor Anthony Drake.

The city proclaimed the infested Parker Street house unlivable, forcing the residents out. "What happens is the occupants started spraying inside and there was so many cockroaches that they emigrated out on the street and they went to houses surrounding this whole house," says Oneida County Legislator Howard Welch.

The problem is, there's no law protecting neighboring houses from getting infected, prompting Oneida Country Legislator Howard Welch to contact the City Codes Department and Health Department and bring it to court.

"We hope that we can maybe come up with a law so that if anyone has a house infested so much with something like cockroaches that they'd have to seal it very well, close the doors and windows, put plastic on any openings and so forth so when they sprayed inside they wouldn't spread to the rest of the neighborhood," says Welch.

The Codes Department, Health Department and neighbors will join Welch in court Monday to do something about the roaming cockroaches.

"The environmental people were over here just a day ago and taking pictures of them, so it's still a problem," says Welch.

County Legislator Welch hopes the judge will also order the absentee landlord to come clean up the garbage that is still all around the house.