When bed bugs invade an apartment, who calls the exterminator and who pays? The conundrum in the emerging field of bed bug law is pitting landlords against tenants and filling court dockets.
Legislation recently introduced in the New Jersey Legislature as Assembly Bill 3203 would force property owners to shoulder the entire financial burden of combating bed bugs by making them solely responsible for conducting annual inspections, distributing, and displaying educational material created by the condition, treat reported bed bugs immediately. infestations and maintain a bed bug-free environment throughout the building or apartment complex. Similar bills are being considered in other states.
Citing the national 500% increase in bed bug infestations and calling the common bed bug “a public nuisance,” House Bill 3203 states that “it is a matter of public welfare to protect the health of the citizens of New Jersey from this plague.” Considering that multi-dwelling owners are “in the best position to coordinate the extermination of bed bug infestations in that multiple dwelling,” the bill states that “each multi-dwelling owner shall be responsible, at his or her expense, for to keep the multiple dwelling free of a bed bug infestation. Owners who fail to act will be fined $300 per infested apartment and $1,000 per infested common area. Local boards of health would have the power to act and bill non-responsive owners. (You can read the full text of New Jersey Bill 3203 on the Stern Environmental website.)
Given the exponential increase in bed bug infestations across the country, homeowners are wary of the potential financial repercussions of such legislation. In New York City, bed bug complaints increased from 1,839 in 2005 to 8,830 in 2008. Violations issued by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development increased from 366 to 2,757 during the same period. New York and New Jersey apartment owners are legally required to provide pest control to tenants. It is the responsibility of the apartment owner to provide tenants with a pest free living environment. That was not always true. Since the 1908 case of Jacobs v. Morand, tenants were legally required to pay rent even if bedbugs had made their apartment uninhabitable. That changed in 2004 with Ludlow Properties, LLC v. Young when Judge Cyril Bedford ruled in favor of a frustrated tenant who had refused to pay rent for six months due to a persistent bed bug problem, writing:
“Although bedbugs are classified as vermin, they are different from… mice and cockroaches, which, while offensive, do not have the effect on one’s life as bedbugs do, feeding on one’s blood in droves.” every night and turning what is supposed to be resting in bed or sleeping into a hellish experience.”
Today, tenants seem to be winning the litigation war against landlords, but it’s a tough fight. When bed bug infestations are discovered, tenants and landlords blame each other. “It comes back to the issue of liability,” said lawyer Ronald Languedoc. “In law, the party asserting a claim usually has the burden of proof. I think it’s probably hard to trace back precisely where they came from and how they got there.”
Under current New York and New Jersey law, apartment owners bear the financial responsibility and expense of providing rat, roach, and bed bug free housing. For cash-strapped apartment owners, therein lies the rub. Rats, cockroaches, and other vermin are attracted to trash and dirty conditions. The connection with proper maintenance, efficient garbage collection and regular pest control is obvious. The cost of such regular maintenance is an expected part of running an apartment building. Like the costs of electricity, water and other utilities, these expenses are calculated in the monthly rent payments and recovered.
Bed bugs are a completely different problem. Bed bugs are not attracted to dirt. They are convenience insects like lice and fleas. These tiny insects crawl from one infected individual to another. They make their home near beds and in bedrooms, hiding in cracks and crevices during the day and creeping out at night to feed on the blood of unsuspecting human prey. About the size of an apple seed, bed bugs multiply rapidly and are expert hitchhikers. You can get them by coming into contact with an infected person, visiting their home, brushing their clothes, standing next to them, or borrowing their belongings. You can get bedbugs if you sit in a seat that has just been vacated by an infected person on a subway, park bench, taxi, or plane. Since not everyone reacts to bed bug bites, people often spread them without even knowing they have them.
Bedbugs can enter an apartment on someone’s clothing, in suitcases and backpacks, in the creases of storage boxes, in the cracks and crevices of used furniture, in the upholstery of a rental sofa, and in renovated mattresses. . Apartment owners have no control over what attracts bed bugs or how the pesky critters enter the building. You can understand their reluctance to take responsibility for a problem they didn’t create and have no control over. However, that is exactly what the housing law requires them to do. Particularly infuriating are restrictions in New York City and under consideration in Jersey City and the New Jersey state legislature that prevent apartment owners from passing on the often-heavy costs of eliminating bed bug infestations to their tenants.
The life cycle and living habits of bed bugs only compound the problem. A single female bed bug can produce up to 500 eggs during her one-year lifespan, laying about five eggs per day. Going through five nymphal stages, bed bugs reach maturity in just five to eight weeks. They nibble at their human prey at night, feeding for up to 10 minutes every three to five days. The tiny insects are often mistaken for other pests and their bites for mosquito or spider bites. Not everyone reacts to their bites, which look like raised, red welts, and many don’t react (itching is typical) for several days after being bitten. Some people are so embarrassed that they don’t report an infestation or try to treat it to no avail with Raid. By the time the problem is noticed or reported, a sizeable infestation may have developed.
Often by the time bed bugs are identified they have spread to other units in a building and it can be difficult to identify the original culprit. Because bed bugs easily spread through wall voids, elevator shafts, plumbing and wiring ducts, and heating and cooling ducts, it is likely that the units next door and those below floors above and below an infested unit are also infested. Treating a unit can simply send the bed bugs looking for new homes. Even empty apartments are not safe, as bed bugs can live from one to seven months without a blood meal.
Eliminating bed bugs in a multi-unit apartment building can be a nightmare for everyone and an unexpected financial burden for the owner. Due to the many variables involved, the need for tenant cooperation, the minute and numerous hiding places of bed bugs, and their tendency to spread quickly and easily, multiple pest control treatments are needed over a spaced period of time to completely eradicate bed bugs apartment building. Apartment owners are being asked to shoulder the financial burden without pay, sometimes without essential cooperation from tenants and without guarantees that the whole mess won’t happen again. It’s not hard to understand why apartment owners feel the new bed bug laws are unfair.
