Landlord advice

[Eric Vail]

I own and rent a condo in a concrete downtown highrise. Mid-August, my tenant moved out and another moved in. I received a phone call from him yesterday saying that he thinks he has bed bugs and wants some direction.

My first reaction is that this is his issue. He moved in six week ago, and it wasn't a problem until now. The previous tenant didn't have this problem. I think he needs to call an exterminator and deal with it himself.

After some preliminary research, I am not sure. This CBC site, says this:

Alberta's public health act and housing regulations require a landlord to provide a tenant with a healthy and habitable environment. A tenant with bedbugs is advised to report the dwelling to the regional health authority. Health inspectors will then assess the problem and in most cases order the landlord to take care of it.

http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/webext....html?bed_eggs

So, I am not so sure now. Should we call the health authority, or is this going to end up with more trouble in the long run? I don't even know for sure if there are bed bugs there. The health inspector could confirm things. My second question, is who should I or my tenant call to take care of this, or could I or my tenant take care of this himself?

Any advice would be appreciated.

[wooohooo]

I'm not sure but my guess is you're on the hook for it. It's pretty hard to catch these things and to kill them. I've had friends who brought back bed bugs from Europe and were successful in just bagging their clothes and sticking it in a hot dryer. Others not and had to exterminate their house. Either way bed bugs are not fun and you would probably want to deal with this ASAP. I think if they call in a health inspector and it is bad they could deem the house unliveable and make you find another equivalent place for the tenant to live in until you fix the problem.

[burn_this_city]

They probably came in with their furniture. Disgusting.

[Kybosh]

I was once renting a place connected to the owners area. They were on the hook for everything when bed bugs came into the residence (they had been traveling, I wasn't).

Deal with it ASAP. Bed bugs are terrible.

[Huntingwhale]

Goodnight
Sleep tight
Don't let the bed bugs bite
If they do
Hit them with your shoe
Until they are black and blue

[Shin Pad]

Really - how expensive is it to get an exterminator in - a couple of hundred bucks?? Just arrange it and pay for it - it'll make your tenant happy.

[ken0042]

I agree with calling an exterminator right away. It does a few things:

- Shows due diligance on your part. May be needed down the road if the tenant tries to break the lease or sue you.
- Gets the problem dealt with so you aren't held accountable if the bugs spread.
- A professional may be able to tell you where these bugs came from. So if the tenant brought them with him- he can now be held accountable.