What Landlords Need to Tell Tenants About Bed Bugs in the Building .
If you're already familiar with our legal blog, you may remember our article about whether landlords are responsible for exterminating bed bugs. In this article, we'll cover whether Maryland landlords take to disclose bed bugs before the tenants determine to move in.
Why Are Bed Bugs a Trouble in Flat Buildings?
As we noted in a previous piece about renters insurance and bed bugs, approximately thirty% of Baltimore's housing is comprised of apartments, condominiums, and other multi-occupant dwellings. Since Baltimore has a population of about 622,000, we can extrapolate that roughly 200,000 people are renters. For this demographic, bed bugs are a major business organization.
Bed bugs do not actively seek out or accept a "preference" for apartment buildings over unmarried-family homes: their but requirement is proximity to their food, which is exclusively human being blood. However, since the populations of apartment buildings are constantly in flux – particularly in high-ascent buildings, which can be packed with hundreds of units – there are endless opportunities for bed bugs to enter. This is amplified even farther past the fact that every single flat unit of measurement in a given edifice has its own prepare of bedding and other furniture. While a single-family home might have one or two beds, an apartment building can have dozens or hundreds. When you add 2nd-hand furniture to the mix, it's a recipe for infestation.
Once the bed bugs accept found their way into a multi-unit of measurement building, they have little incentive to get out due to the high number of potential victims upon which to feed. To a bed issues, a condo or apartment edifice is similar an all-you lot-can-eat cafe.
Furthermore, the issue of bed bug infestations in apartment buildings is often exacerbated by negligent pest control efforts on the part of the landlord, who, in besides many cases, will prioritize saving money over the wellness and safety of his or her renters. While homeowners volition generally take immediate action the moment an infestation is detected, tenants might accept to struggle for weeks or fifty-fifty months just to become their bed issues problem looked at by the landlord. In the concurrently, the infestation keeps growing and growing.
Do Landlords Have to Warn Renters About Pest Infestations?
For all of the reasons described above, bed bugs are highly common in flat buildings. In recent years, bed bug populations accept boomed across the Us, peculiarly in big cities similar Baltimore. (Accept a look at our article most the worst cities for bed bugs to discover out if your urban center is on the list.)
In light of these facts, many urban renters are understandably nervous about discovering bed bugs in their new apartment. But how probable is that to happen? Are landlords supposed to warn potential renters about bed bugs in accelerate, or is information technology simply luck of the draw once you movement in?
In short, the answer depends on where you live. Not only does each state take its ain legislation addressing duties to disclose, each canton within a given country also has its own code outlining tenant and landlord obligations with regard to pest direction (and other safety issues). While Maryland landlords are supposed to disembalm current and previous bed issues infestations to new tenants, many elect to withhold the information in the involvement of alluring more renters.
This is unacceptable behave. Information technology is our opinion that landlords always demand to disclose a known infestation to potential tenants, because most, if non all, tenants will choose to live elsewhere instead of agreeing to alive in infested residence. Not only is withholding bed issues information ethically and morally questionable – nosotros oft consider information technology exist an act of fraud, and may be grounds for litigation. Landlords accept a duty of care to their tenants, which means taking whatever and all reasonable steps to protect those tenants from foreseeable risks of death and injury. Like mold or lead – which are disclosed through prominent addendums – bed bugs pose a potential health hazard, because their bites can lead to skin infections, severe allergic reactions, and, in rare cases, fatal conditions like Chagas Disease and hepatitis B.
If a landlord is aware that a unit or building has a problem with bed bugs, notwithstanding fails to disclose this information to a new renter, the landlord may be liable when the renter is inevitably bitten and forced to replace infested personal property. However, by filing a personal injury lawsuit against the landlord, information technology may be possible for the renter to recover damages (compensation) for his or her medical bills, lost wages, property damage, and other financial losses caused by the infestation. Our lawyers take filed many personal injury lawsuits alleging injuries from tenants who were bitten by bed bugs.
Furthermore, depending on where the renter lives, his or her county code might also concur the landlord responsible for paying for the costs of bed issues extermination. If the pest control visitor fails to eradicate the bed bugs, or sickens the tenant by using excessive amounts of pesticide, the business organization may be liable for any injuries or illnesses suffered past the renter. Landlords and pest control companies tin both be negligent in their duties – and should both exist held accountable when tenants suffer as a result.
If you institute bed bugs in your new apartment, or were forced to pay for bed bug extermination fees, you may exist entitled to compensation. To talk about your rental feel and potential case in a free and private legal consultation, call the bed bug lawyers of Whitney, LLP at (410) 583-8000 today. We handle bed bug apartment cases throughout Maryland, including Baltimore, Annapolis, Glen Burnie, Upper Marlboro, Westminster, Rockville and Silver Spring.
Source: https://whitneyfirm.com/do-landlords-have-to-disclose-bed-bugs-to-tenants/
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