In this Landlord Gurus article, founders Chris Lee and Eli Secor discuss bedbugs in rental properties.
As discussed in this video, Chris has some experience with this from when he was helping a property owner who had a new tenant come in, and soon after, bedbugs as well.
To try to combat it, they hired a pest control company that came in to spray the property with pesticides. Chris explained that the bedbugs went away for a little while but soon returned.
After doing more research, they decided to hire a canine bed bug inspection company. Such companies have dogs that are able to pinpoint bed bugs.
This time, Chris chose to do a heat treatment rather than a pesticide treatment.
“Apparently, that’s the surefire way to get rid of bed bugs, is heat treatment. I think we just looked this up, it’s 118 degrees for, 60 minutes or something like that, or 120 degrees, whatever it is, yeah, it’s just a heat treatment. I don’t think that they had to move anything out or they didn’t have to bag anything. It just gets everything in the unit with the heat. So that’s what we did. That worked and haven’t heard anything about it since. So I assume that’s good news,” Chris said.
In any case of bed bugs, who would pay for eradication?
Eli mentioned that he has started adding an addendum to leases.
“It provides for some rules where, if anything’s detected, tenants are required to tell landlords, you know, these are the types of problems you want to know about. They’re also required to cooperate with measures to eradicate them. It also stipulates that they’ll be liable for the expenses of eradicating the bed bugs if it’s determined that they brought them in. So, because I have that form, in that case, I would try to get the service to tell me,” Eli said.
However, you should proceed with the bed bug treatment as soon as possible. Even if you haven’t determined who is responsible for the payment.
Bed Bugs in Rental Properties: Landlord Gurus Takeaway
If you discover bed bugs in your rental property, the first step you should take is treatment. In Chris’ experience, he recommends a heat treatment; as well as canine bed bug inspection if you need to determine the source. To determine who is responsible for the payment, Eli recommends adding an addendum to your lease.
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