diff --git a/pages/page.py b/pages/page.py
index 85b15f6c..10bacff2 100644
--- a/pages/page.py
+++ b/pages/page.py
@@ -112,9 +112,10 @@ def wait_for_ajax(self):
 
     def get_response_code(self, url):
         # return the response status
-        requests_config = {'max_retries': 5}
+        #this sets max_retries to 5
+        requests.adapters.DEFAULT_RETRIES = 5
         try:
-            r = requests.get(url, verify=False, allow_redirects=True, config=requests_config, timeout=self.timeout)
+            r = requests.get(url, verify=False, allow_redirects=True, timeout=self.timeout)
             return r.status_code
         except Timeout:
             return 408
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index e96903cb..623df7ab 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -11,6 +11,6 @@ py==1.4.8
 pytest==2.2.4
 pytest-mozwebqa==1.0
 pytest-xdist==1.8
-requests==0.11.1
+requests==1.2.0
 selenium
 wsgiref==0.1.2
\ No newline at end of file