New bill seeks to force landlords to disclose bedbug infestations

Landlords are bugging out over a new bill that would force them to further disclose bedbug infestations in their buildings.

The City Council is expected to approve the bill on Tuesday, the New York Post reported. The measure requires landlords to file histories of bedbug infestations with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development. Landlords would also be required to either post the histories in their building or distribute them to tenants. They don’t have to specify what units are infested, just how many have a track record of insect infestation.

“This bill will needlessly alarm tenants that would otherwise not have to be concerned or be worried about an infestation in their building,” Joseph Strasburg, president of the Rent Stabilization Association, told the Post. “This bill is just more regulation overkill.”

The law already requires landlords to notify new tenants of infestations, but the new bill would also require disclosures when leases are renewed.

“What we were finding out was that a number of the people were [on] renewal leases,” Council member Danny Dromm, the bill’s sponsor, said. “So what we wanted to do was to fix it so that those who have renewal leases could also find out whether there were bedbugs in their building.” [NYP] — Kathryn Brenzel