First, wherever you are, I would not withold rent unless directed to do so by a lawyer or judge. You need proper legal advice before taking such a step. It can be grounds for eviction. No one can give you legal advice via a website like this.

You can enquire with a local tenants’ advice organization about your rights and your landlord’s responsibilities.

Also regarding the landlord’s responsibility to disclose a pest infestation in another unit: you need to find out the laws where you are, but I’d suspect he’s probably within his rights in not telling you, unfortunately.

It should be the law, in my opinion, that tenants are notified of the problem in the building, educated about bed bug signs, and given a careful professional inspection of their homes, and treatment if necessary, in these circumstances.

On the other hand, if the landlord knew there were bed bugs in your unit and did not disclose this, you might have grounds for a lawsuit. (Again, you’d need to talk to a lawyer.)

Please spend some time reading the other FAQS. There is a lot of discussion over what to do and what not to do.

Start with this one (Dos and Don’ts). Then read the Bed FAQs.

Then read the others here as you need them.

You probably should not buy a new bed yet, but I won’t go into all the details about why since this is covered in the FAQs.

Tenants in Australia are covered by the Residential Tenancies Act 1987 (which has slightly different versions for each state, though are mostly the same). For Western Australia section 42 states the owner:

(a) shall provide the premises in a reasonable state of cleanliness;
(b) shall provide and maintain the premises in a reasonable state of repair having regard to their age, character and prospective life; and
(c) shall comply with all requirements in respect of buildings, health and safety under any other written law in so far as they apply to the premises.

It doesn’t specifically mention bed bugs or other pests, and I haven’t found any state health and safety legislation for buildings yet, but owners have been prosecuted for bed bugs using this legislation, see: Chessels v Wood (Residential Tenancy) [2004] NSWCTTT 306 (8 June 2004).

In these cases the owner is always responsible, not the real estate agent or a head-tenant or anyone else. It’s the owner that you must take to magistrate’s court.

The main caveat is that not everyone will be considered a tenant - specifically borders and lodgers are excluded. A court can also deem this law will or will not apply to you using Section 84.

If you’re not covered by the Residential Tenancies Act, you may be able to use another law to pursue a case. Likely candidates are the Fair Trading Act for misrepresentation of goods and services, or (long shot) battery and/or negligence laws - this hasn’t been researched.

I am not a lawyer and can’t tell you if you can sue. You’d have to talk to a lawyer about that.

However, one positive step you might take to improve the situation would be to talk to more people about this. Do other residents of the shelter have bites? Has anyone seen bed bugs? The more people who talk about this to the management, the better. Good luck!

Portland, Maine landlords should treat for bed bugs. If not, call the city inspections dept.

Information from this article about bed bugs in Portland, Maine, which says of Greater Portland,

“In the last three or four years, it’s definitely been on the increase,” says Jeanie Bourke, the city’s inspections director. “When I started in 1999, we didn’t have any.”

If apartment renters find themselves assaulted by bed bugs and can’t get their landlord to respond, Bourke’s office fields the complaints. Her team of inspectors then makes sure the landlord hires a pesticide company to spray the place down and that the residents follow a tightly regimented routine requiring the washing of everything and the sealing of clothes and mattresses in plastic.