New York’s Bed Bug Disclosure Act
By Flickr user louento.pix
New York renters, Governor Patterson has granted you a new right: the right to know whether an apartment has had any history of bed bugs within the last year. Senator José Peralta the bill’s sponsor, said that “tenants have the right to know whether the apartment or house they are renting was previously occupied by bed bugs.” The bill, which had passed through the state Senate and the state Assembly in June 2010, has been officially signed into effect.
Its a pretty simple law:
Landlords, you now have the legal obligation to disclose a one year history of your property’s bed bug status to potential tenants, before they sign the lease.
Renters, you are now legally entitled to know a one year history of bed bug issues at a property. Make sure you ask about bed bugs when you are looking at an apartment! Even though potential landlords are required by law to tell you, they may still be reluctant to share this information. Eradicating bed bugs is difficult and expensive, costing not only the landlord, who is charged with hiring an exterminator, but the renter as well, who often must abandon hundreds if not thousands of dollars worth of clothes and furniture.
The newly signed law mandating disclosure might not be the end of bedbug legislation. Rosenthal has also introduced a bill in the Assembly that would create a state tax credit for bedbug sufferers who have had to replace furniture, bedding and other items because of bedbug damage.
Coming Soon!
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Fair Housing / Equal Opportunity Housing
Good! They should have to tell you that they had bed bugs! I don’t want to have to throw away my furniture and clothes because of some slumlord.
October 12, 2010 @ 7:56 pm
This is one of those situations where “New York” simply isn’t descriptive enough. Reading this blog in Rochester and seeing that Governor Patterson signed it, you would assume that it applies to the whole state. But if you find the actually Senate/Assembly bill the title tells more of the story.
“A10356B Summary
Requires owners or lessors to provide bedbug infestation history for the previous year to any lessee of real property within New York city before the lease of such property.”
But where rules start in NYC they’ll probably eventually end up being statewide.
October 13, 2010 @ 4:13 pm