Thursday, September 08, 2011

 

Bed Bugs

Bed bugs are one of my might mares as a landlord. Something you have no control over that could be expensive to mitigate. Illinois passed new bed bug legislation at the beginning of the year but it really only created a bed bug task force that is due to report back any day now.

For now the best practice is to try and stay ahead of the problem. The Chicago building code says that landlords are responsible for pest infestations in two or more apartments. If you find out you have bed bugs in one apartment you need to get on top of it with that tenant before it spread to other apartments. I would even recommend treating the problem and arguing about who is going to pay for it afterwards. It is very possible that your tenant might be responsible for there furniture and other items that could be destroyed by the bugs, but you as the property owner will be responsible for the building and the cost of cleaning out the bugs. You can try and add specific clauses to your lease that don't allow tenants to bring in used or found furniture but those are going to be hard to enforce.

For now we are all waiting on the specific recommendations of the task force on who and how the bugs are to be dealt with. I will try and keep everyone updated on this issue.

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