How Many Treatments Are Needed For Bed Bugs?

Watch the Video: When tenants are dealing with a bed bug infested apartment, they often ask, How Many Treatments Are Needed For Bed Bugs? The answer to that depends on whether the company doing the bed bug treatments is licensed and professional, or are they incompetent, or is the landlord not even paying a professional company and instead trying to self-treat. This blog will address each one of those situations regarding chemical treatments for bed bugs, and discusses tenants’ and renters’ legal rights when they were dealing with a bed bug in their apartment.

Whitney, LLP’s attorneys for bed bugs specialize in bed bug cases and have recovered over $13,000,000 for our clients in bed bug claims cases, verdicts and settlements. Consultations are always free.

If you were moved into an infested apartment, or your landlord is not treating a bed bug infestation effectively, you should know that you have legal rights and can fight back against your landlord.

Compensation for bed bug bites can be recovered for bites, itching, scarring and disfigurement, emotional distress, medical bills, property damage.

What Is Your Case Worth? We offer Legal Consultations and our Clients in bed bug cases pay no out of pocket fees or expenses. Call us at 410 583 8000, or use our Quick Contact Form, to discuss your potential case. Here is our YouTube Channel for videos on bed bug infestations.

Lawyers for Bed Bug Bites and Infestations

Whitney LLP‘s bed bug lawyers help tenants file claims and sue negligent landlords for bed bugs. We have filed many lawsuits for tenants in Maryland where landlords move tenants into bed bug infested apartments, ignore complaints of bed bugs and allow the infestation to persist.

Landlords are usually responsible for bed bugs and are required to quickly inspect and treat both the complaining tenant’s unit, and the adjacent units.

However, many bad landlords do not take the time or spend the money to inspect adjacent units. Without inspecting and treating the adjacent units to the infested unit as necessary, the source of the bed bug infestation can often not be confirmed or treated.

What that means for the neighbors of the infested unit is that no matter how many treatments are performed, the bed bugs will continue to spread through the walls, ceiling and floor.

Apartments Must Be Free of Bed Bugs When Leased

In Maryland, landlords are required to provide an apartment free of bed bug infestation at the time of the lease. When tenants reported a bug infestation, landlords are required to take the necessary action quickly, and in general, they are required to pay for the treatment as well.

However, many landlords rent apartments after the prior tenant moves out due to a bed bug infestation, yet they do not disclose this important information to the incoming tenant. Instead, they often either do not treat at all, or have an ineffective treatment performed that does not fully exterminate the infestation.

However, what some bad landlords and slumlords do is hire negligent pest control companies. These negligent pest control companies often perform many ineffective chemical spray bed bug treatments that simply do not work.

Number of Chemical Treatments for Bed Bugs

If a properly applied chemical treatment is done by a trained professional, the bed bugs should usually be gone with between two and three treatments.

Each treatment must include the time to thoroughly inspect the apartment, find the bed bugs, treat with the correct chemicals, and come back usually within 10 to 14 days.

If all that is done, and the adjacent units are inspected and treated as necessary, the bed bug infestation can usually be taken care of within 3 to 5 weeks.

Bed Bugs and Negligent Pest Control Companies

However, many landlords and slumlords who are responsible for treating bed bugs in their apartments do not hire good pest control companies.

Instead, these terrible landlords will hire the cheapest and worst pest control companies, some of whom are located out of state and offer rock-bottom pricing. These negligent pest control companies perform quick, ineffective treatments, perform negligent inspections, and provide the landlord with a “treatment report” or “inspection report” that usually says no bed bugs were found.

The problem with this of course is that the treatments are ineffective and the technicians are usually untrained. They rush inspections and treatments.

Whitney, LLP’s lawyers for bed bugs have reviewed many service records showing these technicians are sometimes in units for only four or five minutes, instead of the 20 to 30 to 45 minutes it may take to do the job properly, or even more depending on the extent and how heavy the infestation is.

Lawsuits Against the Pest Control Company for Bed Bugs

The lawyers for bed bug infestation at Whitney LLP sue landlords for bed bugs and sue negligent pest control companies for ineffective bed bug treatments. We have handled cases where there are 5, 10, or even over a dozens ineffective treatments performed in a single apartment.

With negligent pest control companies, it is not uncommon to see records that show over a dozen treatments and gallons of pesticide being dumped into an apartment, yet the occupants continues to be bitten, itch and see bed bugs.

Landlord Ignores Bed Bugs Complaints and Self-Treats

Sometimes, the cheapest and worst landlords simply ignore their tenants’ complaints of bed bugs. Ignoring a tenant’s complaints of bed bugs is not only often negligent for that tenant, but also as to the other tenants who will be subject to the spreading infestation when it is not properly and quickly treated.

Or, the worst landlords take it upon themselves to perform ineffective self-help treatments with over-the-counter chemicals that do not work and often make the infestation worse.

For example, using improper chemicals to spray for bed bugs can often drive the bed bugs deeper into hiding, meaning deeper into cracks and crevices and hard to reach spots. When that happens, the infestation becomes entrenched, the bed bugs lay more eggs, or are not killed at all, and the infestation not only worsens in that apartment but it also spreads to other adjacent units.

Examples of ineffective self-help treatment of bed bugs includes having an untrained maintenance man who watched YouTube to try and learn how to exterminate bed bugs, spray random chemicals. Those treatments do not work for bed bugs. The result is that the tenant continues to be bitten and see bed bugs, and their requests for proper treatment are ignored by the landlord.

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Daniel W. Whitney, Sr. and Daniel W. Whitney, Jr. of Whitney, LLP

You Can Sue the Landlord for Bed Bugs – Whitney, LLP Can Help

When a negligent landlord ignores tenant complaints for help with bed bugs, or hires in competent and ineffective pest control companies, tenants have legal rights and can sue their landlord. Compensation for damages from bed bug infestations can include compensation for bed bug bites, emotional distress, property damage and other injuries.

The lawyers for bed bugs at Whitney, LLP have experience recovering compensation by suing negligent landlords across Maryland, including Baltimore, Pasadena, Cockeysville, Owings Mills, Temple Hills, Marlow Heights, Middle River, Germantown, Silver Spring, Frederick, Waldorf, Laurel, Glen Burnie, Gaithersburg, Rockville, Ellicott City and Salisbury. Our clients are often surprised at how much their claims are worth. We have recovered over $13 million for tenants and hotel guests in bed bug infestation cases.