The Gaming Den

I've got bed bugs and have had them for a while despite various personal attempts to handle them. From what I can tell, they could've come in from a friend, family member, me, my roommate, our landlord, an adjacent apartment, or even our biannual exterminator.

The current problem is that when I brought it up with my landlord to handle the situation, I was told that it's not his responsibility to pay for the exterminator (nothing in the lease mentions pest control), but he will (and did) call the exterminator to aim them at us.

I have to ask, for a resident of Texas, who's financially responsible for a bed bug exterminator?

Differs by state. Start by asking your attorney general:

http://www.oag.state.tx.us/consumer/tenants.shtml

On a thirty-second reading, I think your best bet is this:

"You have a right to demand that the landlord repair any condition that materially affects your health and safety. Under Texas law, by renting you the property, the landlord guarantees that the unit will be a fit place to live.

SB 1448 (81st Regular Session), effective January 1, 2010, now grants justices of the peace authority to order landlords to repair or remedy conditions affecting a tenant's health and safety, as long as the cost of the repair does not exceed $10,000. Tenants can go to justice court without an attorney to obtain a repair order."

The agreement between you and your landlord is more than what is contained in your lease. You could make an argument that the bed bugs are the landlord's responsibility, although I wouldn't get your hopes up.

Thing is, if the tenant is the one who made the house unfit to live, the landlord doesn't necessarily have fiscal responsibility.

Did the landlord include a mattress/bedding with the lease? If so, yeah, he's responsible.

If you brought in your own mattress, and it's infested, then you won't have much of a case. Most likely, he'll call the exterminator in this case, but take it out of our deposit.

I had been living in the apartment for three years, and one day they just started appearing. None of my guests have bed bugs in their home and I haven't added furniture of any kind since the first year of living here. It's either come from a guest (up to and including repairmen the landlord sent to my place) first entering someone else's home and dropping one or two off when they stopped by my place, or through a neighbor's walls. Those are all valid vectors for an infestation, and essentially unprovable as to what the source actually is.

If your apartment is part of a multi-unit building, then the landlord has the responsibility to select tenants and deal with infestations. It's just not possible for one of many tenants to actually deal with infestations - they don't have access to most of the building.

Cures vary by state, but blame is generally on the landlord. Only the landlord can demand entry into other areas of the building.

-Crissa

PS: Eww.