New City Council bill would require landlords to make their bedbug problems public

A new City Council bill, set to be approved later today, will require landlords to reveal the history of bedbug infestations in their buildings, the New York Post reports. Currently state law requires that landlords inform new tenants of prior bedbug infestations in an apartment, but this bill is looking to take it several steps further.

While landlords won’t have to identify which particular apartments have infestations (to the whole building), they will have to provide the total number of apartments in their buildings with a history of infestation. In addition, the bill would require landlords to inform tenants of infestations even when they renew their leases.

The bill also asks that landlords file reports about their history of bed bug problems with the city’s Department of Housing and Preservation and that the city agency be required to have this information up on its website. They would also be required to either post these reports in their buildings or hand them out to tenants.

Landlords, predictably, are none too thrilled about this proposal.

“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, the president of the Rent Stabilization Association, which represents 25,000 landlords, told the Post.

• Landlords furious over possible bedbug disclosure law [NYP]