We are not lawyers and can’t give legal advice.

This article links to a Fox News story in which Chicago Alderman Joe Moore says it’s the landlord’s duty in Chicago to get rid of bed bugs. That may help your case.

This may also help, via our FAQ on who pays for treatment: this from the Metropolitan Tenants Organization in Chicago.

If the info. there does not help, call this group, they may be able to offer local tenants’ advice.

I am in a real bind. My boyfriend and I live in an apartment in Illinois (5+ hours south of Chicago, close to St. Louis). We went on a hike 3 weeks ago and shortly there after my boyfriend had this terrible rash. Fast forward to a week ago Sunday where we came back from visiting my folks in NY and find bed bugs on our bed. Turns out I had no reaction to the bugs. We called our landlord the next day to let him know about the infestation. A PCO came to our apartment on Friday saying it would cost $525 to treat our 2 bedroom apartment.

Now here’s the messed up part. Our landlord refuses to pay and claims (through his building manager) that we brought them in because we have a bed that was made in China!!! Now we bought a new bed in June that came wrapped in plastic and had no problems at all until 3 weeks ago. What really is annoying is that when we moved to this place in May we had brought cockroaches with us (we have had lousy luck with apartments) and the landlord treated them at no cost to us even though we accidentally brought them in.

So now we have a PCO coming in tomorrow, a tossed mattress and a $525 bill to pay in addition to a $625 in rent to pay in less than a week. we spent all day today washing and drying clothes. Spent $75 getting tupperware containers to pack up our clothes. It seems like from looking around this website that the landlord may be obligated to pay for this but we haven’t been able to find the exact law that states this. The landlord won’t budge unless we can prove that we didn’t bring the bed bugs in but how do you prove that???

HELP two broke students who are~
bugged on all sides

Read this.

and this.

First try to identify if you might have them at home or work.
Ask other coworkers if they have noticed any itching or insects. Look around. See if you see little black specks.

But consider they may be at home and those may be bites you suffered at home last night.
Our FAQs should help you identify the problem and treat it if necessary.

I can only find two small red marks that look like bites, at least they’re not something that was on my leg before.

I mean, I am a clean person who just showered this morning. I know this sounds silly, but I live in NYC and I KNOW this is a big, big problem.

Can I take a shower as soon as I get in the house and throw my clothes into a plastic bag? Is there anything I can do pre-emptively?

How did you seal your stuff? Like Books and CDs. I’m thinking about sealing them in individual ziplocs (one single CD in one small sandwich ziploc, a couple of books in a medium-sized ziploc, etc) and put them in Rubbermaid for the easy to transport and to stack. Do you think that’ll work?

For clean (unwashable) winter clothes, can I just throw them in the dryer and tumble dry for more than an hour before I seal them in XL Ziplocs? Will that kill the bugs? I can’t really afford to dry clean every piece of my winter clothes.