What Are the Legal Requirements for the Disclosure of Bed Bugs?

No federal law requires bed bug disclosure, but several states and cities do, and their rules differ. California requires a written bed bug notice for every new tenant and bars you from renting a unit you know is infested. New York City requires a form showing the building's bed bug history for the past year with every new lease. Maine requires you to tell an applicant if an adjacent unit is currently infested or being treated for bed bugs, and bars renting a unit you know or suspect has bed bugs. Your state's general repair and habitability rules can still require you to treat an infestation.

Which states and cities require bed bug disclosure?

These four are examples, not a complete list. Check your state's landlord-tenant statute and your city's housing code before you sign a new lease, because New York City landlords must comply with both state and city rules.

What does California require, and when?

California's rules cover the whole cycle from listing to treatment:

1. Before you show or rent a vacant unit, make sure you do not know of a current infestation. You do not have to inspect for bed bugs without some notice of a problem, but if bed bugs are visible during a visual inspection, you are treated as knowing about them.
2. Before each new tenancy starts, give the tenant the written bed bug notice. It must cover what bed bugs look like at each life stage, how they live and spread, what bites and other signs of an infestation look like, why prompt written reports matter, and how to report one to you. The statute includes a model form that your notice should follow.
3. After a pest control inspection, give the tenants of every inspected unit the inspector's findings in writing within 2 business days after you receive them. If bed bugs are confirmed in a common area, notify every tenant.
4. To enter for inspection or treatment, follow California's normal entry rules, including written notice. Tenants must cooperate and give the information needed to detect and treat the bugs.

California's bed bug notice belongs with the other lease notices covered in California lease required disclosures.

What does New York City require?

New York City landlords must meet city requirements and statewide notice rules:

• Notice of a known infestation. Under New York Real Property Law section 235-j, landlords statewide, including in New York City, must give written notice to tenants immediately above, below, and adjacent to an infested unit within 72 hours of learning of the infestation. These notices must not identify the infested unit or its tenants. For a known common-area infestation, post a notice in a conspicuous location accessible to all tenants within 72 hours of learning of it.
• History disclosure for new leases. Give each tenant signing a vacancy lease, meaning a lease for a new tenant, the state housing agency's Form DBB-N. You check the boxes that apply: no bed bugs in the building or apartment in the past year, an infestation on named floors that was or was not treated, or an infestation in the apartment itself that was or was not treated. Both you and the tenant sign it.
• Annual bed bug report. If you own a rental building with three or more units, file a report with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) between December 1 and December 31 each year, covering November 1 through October 31. It lists your total units, infested units, units treated, and units that were infested again after treatment. Within 60 days of filing, either post the receipt in a prominent place in the building or give each tenant a copy at lease start and each renewal. Corporate and LLC owners must file online. Filing is free.

Local Law 69 of 2017 also requires you to try to get the unit's bed bug history from the tenant or unit owner, so ask outgoing tenants and keep their answers. Other New York lease notices are in New York lease required disclosures.

What can tenants do if you do not disclose?

Remedies depend on the state, and most come from habitability law rather than a disclosure penalty.

• Maine. Violating the bed bug statute, including its disclosure rule, counts as failing to fix a condition that endangers health or safety. You owe the greater of $250 or the tenant's actual damages, plus reasonable attorney's fees. If you start an eviction within 6 months after a tenant used these rights, courts presume it is retaliation, unless the eviction is for unpaid rent or serious damage.
• California. A building that is not free of vermin at the start of the lease, or common areas that are not kept free of vermin, can make the unit legally untenantable. If you fail to fix the condition after notice and a reasonable time (30 days is presumed reasonable), a tenant can pay for treatment and deduct its cost from rent only if the total treatment cost does not exceed one month's rent. The tenant can use this remedy no more than twice in 12 months, or instead move out and stop owing rent from the move-out date. Neither remedy applies if the condition resulted from the tenant's violation of legal duties to care for the property.
• New York City. A tenant can report bed bugs to 311 if you do not act. HPD inspects and issues a violation if inspectors see live bed bugs, and you then have to inspect the cited unit and the units above, below, and beside it.
• Arizona. The statute does not create a new right to sue for bed bug damages beyond what it specifically provides, so tenants rely on the state's general landlord-tenant remedies.

How do you meet these rules in practice?

1. Keep a pest log by unit. Record every report, inspection, and treatment with dates and floors, so you can fill out a history form accurately.
2. Add the required notice or form to your lease packet and get the tenant's signature on it before the lease is signed.
3. Ask outgoing tenants whether they saw bed bugs, and write down the answer.
4. Do not list a unit with an active infestation until a licensed pest control operator confirms it is treated.
5. Share inspection results in writing with affected tenants, even where your state does not require it.

Inspection and treatment steps are in what to do if your rental has bed bugs. For how bed bugs fit with your other health-hazard duties, see your key liabilities as a landlord.