My fiancee, daughter, and myself recently signed a 12 month lease with a very nice landlord. We moved in last tuesday, only bring the basic necessities for our first night. As we put our daughter down to bed we called it an early night. At some point I woke up to the feeling of little legs crawling on my neck. My natural reaction was to smack or squish whatever it was. I looked at my hand afterwards and there was a fair amount of blood. My fiancee and I got up and went to the bathroom and discovered little bugs crawling all over the floor, the sink, the tub, etc. I caught one in a bottle and proceeded to determine what it was. It turns out they were bed bugs.

We woke my daughter and checked her for bugs. She was fine, but we noticed a bug by her closet door. Inside of the closet were countless bedbugs. We realized we were surrounded by these heat-seaking nocturnal assassins! On the baseboards, on door frames, in the cracks of the stairs, EVERYWHERE. We both realized we had bites on us. We went back to our a room to find them all over our bed. Needless to say we left immediately. We left everything there and went to a motel.

Our landlord was shocked to find out that these bugs were there. He said he had no idea what so ever and apologized repeatedly. My brother lives in the same complex so while venturing to his place to discuss last nights problem I ran into another tenant. I asked if she had any issues with bugs. She laughed and said yes. That she has been fighting off bedbugs for months and the landlord refuses to do anything about it. Our new neighbor was outside and spoke up that she had them as well.

We’ve spent $300 staying at a motel because we can’t live in our new apartment. Our landlord has used a basic spray chemical (the kind used outside for ants, beetles, etc) to essentially soak our apartment twice in 3 days. This alone is a misuse of the chemical and would put my crawling daughter at risk.

Our landlord lied to us about knowing there was a major infestation of bugs. We killed 50+ of them in a 45 minute period in our hallway ALONE! My question is does my landlord legally have to reimburse me for lodging because he failed to hold up his responsibiilty to provide a habitable and sanitary dwelling? He agreed to terminate the lease and refund our deposit and rent but we’re still out hundreds of dollars as well as bedding, clothing, and other things that are now infested with these bugs.

Any advice will help.

Originally posted 2009-10-26 12:38:35.