What is the landlord’s obligation to notify of and treat for bed bugs?

By YvetteM

I received a letter at my apartment, slid under the door, by a "Concerned Resident", stating a nearby apartment had a Bed Bug Infestation that the apt management has NOT notified any of the tenants about and that we should call the office to ask them to treat our apartments. They said the infected apartment has been treated on 3 different occasions, the 1st time being at the end of December, so to this date, the apartments have not notified any of the residents of this themselves even though they knew about the issue for at least 2 months. I called the Manager to discuss it and she told me she knows who did the letter and she’s not happy about it, but she can’t disclose the name of the person. She also wanted me to know that we do not have an infestation… I ask "Was there an infestation?" And she says she cannot confirm or deny that, but tells me that their pest control company will be out NEXT Friday for a routine check and offers to write up a work order for them to check my apartment if I wanted her to. (Was asking really necessary, of course I want it checked!)

My question is: what is their obligation to inform us, how soon should they have said something, offered treatment, etc. and can they be legally held accountable for this, and/or is it cause for me to break my lease??

Edited on: Friday, February 15th, 2013 1:05 pm

One Response to “What is the landlord’s obligation to notify of and treat for bed bugs?”

My response: (We welcome stories, examples, explanations, answers and a touch of your personality)
 

Matt

February 15th, 2013 6:22 pm

Hi Yvette! Landlords are responsible for treating bedbugs. I actually find it nice that your landlord has offered to treat your apartment even if you haven’t seen any bedbugs. Know that there are only a few landlords who would do that for their tenants. With regard to how soon they should have said something, that remains to be part of the discretion of the landlord. If they would have told everyone, wouldn’t that have caused panic? A landlord can only be held legally liable if they did not do anything to treat the bedbugs and as for your last question, you cannot legally break your lease agreement because yes, your landlord is working on resolving the issue with bedbugs.


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