Bed bugs in an apartment building? Landlord responsiblities?

Question

I am curious what responsiblities the landlord has when it comes to these little pests. Recently, I started finding itchy bug bites in random places on my body. After some research, we figured they were probably bed bug bites. Now, we have never seen ANY evidence of bugs in our own apartment, but since that's what the bites look like, we did a deep clean. We even replaced our mattress and boxspring, and have plastic covers on them. 

Three days after we replaced our bed and did all kinds of cleaning, along with some light bug spraying, my neighbor decided (at 3am) to get rid of her bed and boxspring as well. My fiance went to leave for work in the morning and found a mattress and boxspring RIGHT outside our apartment door. They were leaning against the hallway wall, literally less than two feet from our door. You could barely walk by them without rubbing against them. It was bad enough that she put her trash in front of our door, but what REALLY disturbed me was that there was clear evidence of bed bugs on both the matress and boxsprings. We even saw a few of the pests crawling on it. (We did take pictures.) 

We called the landlord and the maintainance man moved the bed to the dumpster within a few hours. However, the bed frame (which was set outside in the hall between my calling the landlord and the maintainance man getting there) was left in the hallway, and I heard my neighbor being told to take it to the dumpster herself. He also sprayed some sort of bug spray on the matress, but not on the carpeting or walls of the hallway.This was about two weeks ago, and the frame pieces are still in the hallway.

Now, I have been finding more and more bites all over myself. They had seemed to stop for a while, after our cleaning and replacing the mattress, but now I am covered and itching again (50+ bites and counting). And worse, I have found three marks that could be bites on my one-year-old daughter. My fiance has had two marks that look similar to mine, but I believe that I'm having a worse reaction to the bites because I'm 8 months pregnant. 

What is my responsibility, and what is my landlords? As far as I know, my lease doesn't mention bugs or extermination fees. My landlord told me to get bug spray if I was worried, and I did, but apparently it has not helped. I have read on several sites that to use a bug bomb, or fogger, would put me at risk to be sued if the bugs move to another apartment. Isn't he required to exterminate my neighbor's apartment since bed bugs were on the mattress she threw out?

Do I need to be documenting the bites that I get? And does it matter that we thought the problem was in our apartment only and tried to remedy it before we contacted him? (We weren't sure if it was really bed bugs or not until we saw them on her mattress in the hallway. Those were the only bugs we have actually SEEN, but I am still being bitten, and much worse now than before.)

I apologize for this being so long. To sum up, I am not asking how to get rid of bedbugs (I've done tons of research and have been working on it), I am asking what are my landlord's responsibilities now that he knows my neighbor has them?

My Zoo · Accepted Answer

Easy -- he is responsible call the health department and they will make him take care of it.

Anonymous · Answer

It is tough to decide who is responsible. Bed bugs can come from anywhere - they can come in on animals or in infested furniture, they can come in the home from outside. There is no way to prove whether these little guys came from you (such as if you bought used furniture that had some you didn't notice), someone else's apartment, or just came in from outside. Rather than pointing fingers at who's to blame, I would focus on getting rid of the critters. Have the landlord come in and exterminate all of the apartments. He needs to do it NOW rather than waiting for you to move, because the longer he waits the more chance there is of the little guys moving from your apartment to someone else's. Wikipedia has some ways that you can kill any of the ones you see, including spraying rubbing alcohol on them or using a fabric steamer. Short of that, I would say toss the mattress, check for bedbugs in the rest of your furniture and either kill them or toss the furniture, and then go ahead and move. Let the landlord take care of getting them out of the apartment. However since bedbugs feast on human blood, they will more than likely migrate once you leave the apartment.

Genuine Guidance · Answer

The reason why you thought they were eradicated for awhile is that you only killed the adults. Now the eggs they laid are hatching...usually, when the pest control comes out, they may have to come out 2 or 3 times to fully get rid of them. They usually need to come out between 4 and 6 weeks since the last fumigation. 

Most of the cases I have seen, the landlord is responsible for pest control.

Jenn ♥Cadence Jade&#39;s mum♥ · Answer

My old boss had this problem in her building and they only way they completely got rid of the problem was for the entire building to be sprayed by an exterminater.  Just doing one apartment will do no good.  They travel through vents and such to the next apartment.  I would be phoning the landlord and tenants act and find out the landlords responsibilities.

Bed bugs in an apartment building? Landlord responsiblities?

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