New Bedbug Law Forces Landlords to Reveal Past Infestations to Potential Tenants
With the fear of bedbugs sweeping across New York City, state housing officials have issued a new disclosure form requiring landlords to reveal whether or not the tiny blood-sucking insects had been reported in a rental apartment or elsewhere in the building.
The form, the DBB-N, or Notice to Tenant: Disclosure of Bedbug Infestation history, is to be signed by a landlord and a new tenant when a lease is prepared, giving tenants a last chance to back out.
Brokers say that in the past few months, amid a rise in reports of bedbugs, more and more tenants have been inquiring into the bedbug history of apartments, and the disclosure law will do much to clear the air. But landlords are now worried that the new form will make apartments and entire buildings unrentable, even if a small bedbug sighting has been treated.
“You are going to put a scarlet B on a lot of apartment buildings and make tenants afraid to rent,” says Sherwin Belkin, a lawyer who represents many landlords…
Read the rest here (via the WSJ).
What say you, Neighborhood?
Will this disclosure put you at ease? Skeeve you out? Move you to set your mattress on fire?
Here: If you’re moving in to a new place, get one of these mattress covers as a precaution.
Previously on Bedbugs
It’s ABOUT TIME.
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It’s ABOUT TIME.
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