Bed Bugs: Tenant Rights and Landlord Obligations

Where a state bed bug law sets the costs, your landlord pays for inspection and treatment, with narrow exceptions. Colorado, Connecticut, and Maine charge you only for preparing your unit and for extra treatments caused by your unreasonable refusal to cooperate, New Hampshire lets the landlord recover the cost only if you were responsible for the infestation, which it must prove if it takes you to court, and Delaware makes you share the cost when you report bed bugs more than 60 days after moving in. Where no bed bug law sets costs, your state's general repair rules, your local housing code, and your lease decide who pays.

Who pays for bed bug treatment in states with bed bug laws

Five states set deadlines from your report and spell out who pays:

Colorado, Connecticut, and Maine do not require the landlord to pay for a hotel stay or to replace your furniture or clothing.

Florida covers bed bugs in its general repair statute. Unless the lease says otherwise in writing, the landlord of any rental other than a single-family home or duplex must make reasonable provisions for extermination of bedbugs. If you must leave for treatment, the landlord must give you 7 days' written notice, you can be required to stay out for no more than 4 days, and your rent is reduced for that time.

Elsewhere, check your local housing code; New York City, for example, requires owners to address infestations promptly using pest control professionals licensed by the state. For other pests and the general rules, see who handles pest control in a rental.

What you must do when you find bed bugs

1. Report it in writing as soon as you suspect bed bugs. Colorado requires written or electronic notice; electronic notice must go to the email address, phone number, or portal named in your lease or, if none is named, through a method the landlord has used with you, and you must keep proof that it was delivered. In Delaware, the date of your report decides whether you share the cost.
2. Let the inspector and exterminator in after proper notice. Colorado requires 48 hours' written or electronic notice before entry unless your lease sets a different time. New Hampshire requires 48 hours' written notice when the landlord wants to check your unit because bed bugs were found next door, above, or below. In Colorado, Connecticut, and Maine, inspectors start with bedding and upholstered furniture and check other belongings only when reasonable. When a landlord can enter your rental covers notice rules in general.
3. Prepare the unit as the pest control company instructs. EPA's preparation steps include drying clothing and bedding on high heat for 30 minutes, storing cleaned items in sealed plastic bags, getting rid of clutter and cardboard boxes, and moving the bed at least 6 inches from the wall. In New Hampshire, written preparation instructions must reach an adult in your household at least 72 hours before treatment, and willfully refusing to follow them is prohibited.
4. Ask for help if you cannot do the preparation yourself. Connecticut and Maine landlords must offer reasonable assistance to a tenant who is unable to prepare the unit. The landlord may charge a reasonable amount for that help, on a repayment schedule of up to 6 months unless you agree to more time.
5. Keep infested belongings in the unit until treatment is done. Connecticut bars removing infested furniture or clothing until the pest control agent says treatment is complete or the landlord approves, and Colorado bars dumping infested items in a common area where they could spread to other units.

When a landlord can bill you for treatment

Apart from Delaware's cost sharing in the table above, these laws allow a treatment bill only in specific situations:

• Refusing to cooperate. In Colorado and Connecticut, your knowing and unreasonable failure to follow inspection and treatment measures makes you liable for the resulting treatments, including treatments of neighboring units. In Maine, an unreasonable failure to fully comply makes you responsible for the treatments that failure causes. In all three states, a court can order you to give access and assess the costs of your noncompliance.
• Bringing the bed bugs in (New Hampshire). The landlord must bill you in writing and, in court, prove both that you were responsible and that it offered you a reasonable repayment plan. A court starts from the presumption that you were responsible if there were no bed bug reports in your unit or the units beside, above, or below it during the 6 months before you moved in and none during your tenancy other than your own report, but it weighs evidence such as where bed bugs were first found. If you neither pay nor sign a repayment agreement within 30 days after remediation is complete, meaning treatment that substantially reduces the bed bugs for at least 60 days, the unpaid bill becomes grounds for eviction for nonpayment of rent.
• Your own negligence (Florida). The extermination duty does not cover conditions caused by the negligent or wrongful act of you, your family, or your guests.

Ask for the inspection findings in writing before you pay anything. California requires written notice of the pest control company's findings within 2 business days after the landlord receives them, and Colorado requires written notice within 2 business days after an inspection saying whether bed bugs were found.

What a landlord must disclose before you rent

• California: Before a new tenancy begins, the landlord must give you a written bed bug notice, in at least 10-point type, that explains how to spot bed bugs and how to report them. A landlord cannot show, rent, or lease a vacant unit it knows has a current infestation.
• New York City: Owners must give new tenants a disclosure form showing the property's bed bug history for the past year. Owners must also give you the receipt for their annual bed bug report to HPD with a new lease or renewal, or post it in the building.
• Colorado: A landlord cannot offer a unit it knows or reasonably suspects has bed bugs and, if you ask, must say whether the unit had bed bugs in the previous 8 months.
• Connecticut: A landlord cannot offer a unit it knows or reasonably suspects is infested and, before renting, must tell you whether the unit or any unit next to it is currently infested.
• Delaware and Maine: Before renting, the landlord must tell you whether an adjacent unit is infested or being treated. Delaware landlords must also visually inspect the unit for signs of bed bugs before renting it.

If your landlord does not act

Report the problem to your local code enforcement office or health department, which Colorado and Connecticut law lets you do at any time. In New York City, file a complaint online or call 311, and HPD issues a violation when its inspector sees live bed bugs.

A Connecticut or Maine landlord who breaks its bed bug law owes you the greater of $250 or your actual damages, plus reasonable attorney's fees; in Colorado, the landlord owes your actual damages. In Maine, an eviction filed within 6 months after you asserted your bed bug rights, before any eviction notice, is presumed to be retaliation unless it is for unpaid rent or substantial damage.

An ignored infestation can also breach your right to a habitable home, which has its own remedies. If it makes the unit unlivable and the landlord still does nothing, constructive eviction explains when moving out ends your duty to pay rent. Protections beyond pest problems are covered in your basic rights as a tenant.