Moderately devastated by bed bugs

By Martin Flaherty

I have been a renter in this 6 story Manhattan building happily for 30 years. Considered a model tenant: clean, nonproblematic and always on time with rent, I was surprised when a 6-7 year female tenant on the 6th floor in May complained that she’d been invaded with bed bugs. The landlord gave a few treatments to her apartment but sometime later she reported that the bugs were still there and she had to leave the building permanently.  I didn’t think much more about it until I experienced bedbugs myself in my 2nd floor apartment in July. An exterminator was hired and fired by the landlord for unbeknownst reasons. Then  a 2nd exterminator came and helped prep my entire wardrobe, bedding etc, bagged everything and it was drycleaned and or hot dryered. My entire bedroom was disassembled, fabric wallcoverings stripped. There were three treatments plus a wall caulking. Everything was placed in large garbage bags. Unfortunately some bags contained valuable clothing etc and was thrown out with the trash. My laundry/dry cleaning bills plus purchase of new bed, mattress and replacement clothing comes to about $6000. However, the landlord bears no responsibility for damages or losses to the apartment’s contents—only for the extermination. Do I have just cause? Sincerely, Martin J Flaherty

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