Hint: do not aggressively clean or treat. HPD inspectors apparently need to see visual evidence in your home, and may not accept a bug in a plastic tub.

Read the FAQS and ask advice in the forums: I would not say storing items for 18 months would be my best advice. You can probably treat furniture and leave electronics exposed. A PCO will hopefully be ordered and have good advice for you on whether you can keep furniture.

I am not a lawyer– if you’re talking about a lawsuit or housing court, you’d need to get legal advice on that.

Document everything and remember–do not clean away evidence before getting an inspector in.

I’m afraid no one here can give you legal advice.

You should try calling Met Council on Housing, a fabulous NYC organization that gives tenants advice. They know the law, and will know what your next step should be.

Met Council:
http://www.metcouncil.net/contact.htm

It sounds like you called 311 and had an HPD inspector come out. Did they find bed bugs? It may be possible for you to call HPD and follow up. (311 would probably be the first step in that case.)

Unfortunately, killing bed bugs you see is not an effective treatment program. You do need serious, aggressive help. Pesticides should be applied by an experienced, licensed professional who knows bed bugs, and should be applied safely. If you have a baby, or an infirm person in the home, you should discuss your options with the PCO. But do get treatment. You are likely seeing a VERY small proportion of your bed bugs. Seeing one or two is a lot.

If you have more questions, please come to the forums, where you will get feedback from many more people: http://bedbugger.com/forum

I think it is the case that they have fled the other apartment. I think it all started when the landlord started renovating an apartment two floors down. We started seeing some cockroaches and other little bugs in our apartment (which was previously very rare). Then they apparently treated the bedbug infestation in both of the two floors beneath us, but oddly not the ground floor. And now they seem to have run up into ours.

Thanks so much for your help. I do have one other question though, how dangerous is the insecticide stuff they spray? I’m about as nervous letting that stuff into my home as I am about having bedbugs in it. Could I not combat them just as well by being vigilant, clean and handy with a rolled up newspaper?

Unfortunately, the law is not specific about these things. Your experience is a common one.

I think the best thing you can do now is strongly encourage the landlord to have every unit adjacent to any of the units with known bed bugs inspected by a professional who knows bed bugs (by adjacent I mean above, below, or on any side). Again, the law is not specific on this. It’s just standard practice in the industry. If the landlord wants the whole building to get bed bugs and never get rid of them, s/he should keep dealing only with the units where people NOTICE bed bugs and complain about them.

Also, FYI– if you have found bed bugs and eggs, it’s possible you had them BEFORE two weeks ago. It is hard to find bed bugs in the early stages, and you may have had them for some time (if you do not react to bites, or did not initially). Another possibility is that they fled the other apt. after treatment, and if this is true, it may mean the pest control company is not handling this well. (Actually, if all adjacent units to the ones infested were not carefully inspected by pros after the original unit was found to be infested, it’s a SURE sign the PCO and landlord as a team are not handling this well.)

I’ve just been told by a neighbor that the landlord treated a bedbug infestation in the apartment below us about two weeks ago. This is the first I’ve heard of it however.

My question is: isn’t the Landlord compelled to inform all the tenants in the building when a bedbug infestation is found? And if they do not can they then be considered negligent?