Your lease says you pay. That may mean nothing.

These states forbid waiver of the habitability duty in terms. The clause is not merely weak — it is unenforceable, and in Vermont expressly contrary to public policy. A landlord relying on it is relying on nothing.

9 V.S.A. § 4457(b) — no rental agreement shall contain any provision by which the tenant waives the implied warranty of habitability; any such waiver is contrary to public policy and unenforceable and void. · Teller v. McCoy, 253 S.E.2d 114 (W. Va. 1978) at 130 — no person may legally waive the right to live in a fit and habitable condition. · S.D. Codified Laws § 43-32-8 — the parties may not waive or modify the requirements imposed by this section. · Minn. Stat. § 504B.385 subd. 10 — rent escrow rights and remedies may not be waived or modified by any oral or written lease. · R.I. Gen. Laws § 34-18-17 — a lease may not make the tenant waive rights or remedies, nor limit the landlord’s liability for failing in their duties. · Kan. Stat. Ann. § 58-2544 — waiver of tenant rights under the Act prohibited.

A subtler and rather elegant construction. These states permit a tenant to agree to do work — but not work the landlord is already legally obliged to do. Since pest control in a habitable dwelling is exactly that, the clause collapses. Nevada goes furthest, adding that the landlord may not charge you fees for performing their own duty either.

NRS 118A.290(2)-(3) — an agreement that the tenant performs specified repairs is valid only if entered into in good faith, and is NOT in good faith where the landlord has a duty under subsection 1 to perform that work; the section heading also bars fees or charges for work that is the landlord’s duty. · HRS § 521-42(b)(1) — such an agreement must be in good faith and NOT for the purpose of evading the obligations of the landlord. · Ala. Code § 35-9A-204(e) — the landlord may not treat performance of a separate agreement as a condition to any obligation or performance of the rental agreement. · AS 34.03.100(e) — same construction. · N.D. Cent. Code § 47-16-13.1(6) — same, and subdivisions (a) to (d) cannot be shifted at all.

The statute lists the landlord’s duties and then names precisely which of them may be handed to the tenant. Habitability is deliberately not on that list. Virginia is the clearest drafting of this anywhere: the tenant may take on three enumerated duties, and the two that matter are conspicuously excluded.

Va. Code § 55.1-1220(D) — landlord and tenant may agree in writing that the tenant performs the duties in subdivisions A(3), A(6) and A(7) ONLY; the habitability duties at A(1) and A(2) cannot be shifted. · N.D. Cent. Code § 47-16-13.1(4)-(5) — a single-family landlord and tenant may shift subdivisions (e) and (f) plus specified repairs in good faith, but not (a) to (d), which include code compliance, fit-and-habitable, common areas and building systems. · Mont. Code Ann. § 70-24-303(1)(e) — waste receptacles apply ‘unless otherwise provided in a rental agreement’, while the fit-and-habitable duty at (1)(b) carries no such escape.

Louisiana permits the warranty to be waived — genuinely unusual — but carves out the thing that matters. A residential waiver cannot reach defects that seriously affect health or safety, and a real infestation belongs in that category. Read your lease for the waiver, then read the carve-out.

La. Civ. Code art. 2699 — the warranty against vices or defects may be waived, but only by clear and unambiguous language brought to the lessee’s attention, and the waiver is ineffective (1) as to defects the lessee did not know of and the lessor knew or should have known, (2) where contrary to art. 2004, and (3) in a residential or consumer lease, to the extent it purports to waive vices or defects that seriously affect health or safety. See also Wells, 71 So. 3d 1170, holding a clause requiring the tenant to ‘maintain the house in good repair’ was not a clear and unambiguous waiver.

Here the clause can work, but only if the landlord satisfied requirements they frequently have not. Michigan permits modification only on a lease of a year or more. Utah and South Carolina require an explicit, properly formed agreement. Colorado goes the other way and puts preparation costs on the tenant by statute, so there is nothing to argue about there.

MCL 554.139(2) — the parties may modify the obligations where the lease term is one year or more; this is how first-$100-of-repairs clauses appear in Michigan leases. · Utah Code § 57-22 — any duty in the Act may be allocated to a different party by explicit written agreement signed by the parties. · S.C. Code Ann. § 27-40-440 — the parties may agree the tenant performs specified duties subject to conditions, including that it does not diminish the landlord’s obligations to other tenants; note South Carolina has no express bad-faith bar of the Nevada kind. · Colo. Rev. Stat. § 38-12-1004 — the tenant is responsible for the costs of PREPARING the unit for inspection and treatment, which is a statutory allocation rather than a lease term.

One state permits any duty in the Act to be moved onto the tenant by written agreement, without carve-out. If you rent in Wyoming, your lease is not a formality — it may genuinely be the whole answer, and the state’s own Judicial Branch guide flags the provision with an emphatic ‘HOWEVER’ for exactly that reason.

Wyo. Stat. § 1-21-1202(d) — any duty or obligation in this article may be assigned to a different party or modified by explicit written agreement signed by the parties. Subsection (c) narrows things further by excluding conditions that do not materially affect the physical health or safety of the ordinary renter. There are no standardized lease forms in Wyoming, so each landlord drafts their own.