Landlord/Tenant Bedbugs Disclosure -Effective 7/1/17
and 8/1/18
Introduces
new disclosure requirement for new tenants commencing July 1, 2017 and for
existing tenants commencing January 1, 2018. Landlord is prohibited from
showing or renting. vacant units if the landlord “knows” it has a current bed
bug infestation. However, there is no duty on a landlord to inspect a dwelling
unit or the common areas of the premises for bed bugs if the landlord has no
notice of a suspected or actual bed bug infestation. Requires landlords to
provide copies of pest control reports to tenants whose units have been
inspected and other tenants if infestation in common area is confirmed.
Current law imposes various obligations on landlords
who rent out residential dwelling units, including providing each new tenant
who occupies the unit with a copy of the notice provided by a registered
structural pest control company if a contract for periodic pest control service
has been executed.
Disclosure Obligations:
On and after July 1, 2017, prior to creating a new tenancy for a dwelling unit,
a landlord must provide a written notice to the prospective tenant. And
beginning January 1, 2018 this notice must be given to all other tenants. The
notice must be in at least 10-point type and must include at least the
following:
First, general information in substantially the
following form:
Information about Bed
Bugs Bed Bug Appearance: Bed bugs have six legs. Adult bed bugs have flat bodies about 1/4 of
an inch in length. Their color can vary from red and brown to copper colored.
Young bed bugs are very small. Their bodies are about 1/16 of an inch in
length. They have almost no color. When a bed bug feeds, its body swells, may
lengthen, and becomes bright red, sometimes making it appear to be a different
insect. Bed bugs do not fly. They can either crawl or be carried from place to
place on objects, people, or animals. Bed bugs can be hard to find and identify
because they are tiny and try to stay hidden.
Life Cycle and Reproduction: An average bed bug lives
for about 10 months. Female bed bugs lay one to five eggs per day. Bed bugs
grow to full adulthood in about 21 days.
Bed bugs can survive for months without feeding.
Bed bug Bites: Because bed bugs usually feed at night,
most people are bitten in their sleep and do not realize they were bitten. A
person’s reaction to insect bites is an immune response and so varies from
person to person. Sometimes the red welts caused by the bites will not be
noticed until many days after a person was bitten, if at all.
Common
signs and symptoms of a possible bed bug infestation:
•
Small red to reddish brown fecal spots on mattresses, box springs, bed frames,
mattresses, linens, upholstery, or walls.
•
Molted bed bug skins, white, sticky eggs, or empty eggshells.
•
Very heavily infested areas may have a characteristically sweet odor.
•
Red, itchy bite marks, especially on the legs, arms, and other body parts
exposed while sleeping. However, some people do not show bed bug lesions on
their bodies even though bed bugs may have fed on them.
For more information, see the Internet Web sites of
the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the National Pest
Management Association.
Secondly, the notice must include the procedure that
the tenant must follow to report suspected infestations to the landlord.
Additional
Disclosure Obligations:
Whenever a pest control operator conducts inspections
of a unit (including surrounding units), the landlord must notify the tenants
of those units in writing of the operator’s findings. This notice must be made
within two business days of receipt of the pest control operator’s findings. (A
pest control operator means an individual holding a Branch 2 Operator, field
representative, or applicator license from the Structural Pest Control Board.)
However, for confirmed infestations in common areas, all tenants shall be
provided notice of the pest control operator’s findings.
Landlord
is prohibited from showing or renting vacant units if the landlord “knows” it
has a current bed bug infestation.
This law prohibits a landlord from showing, renting,
or leasing to a prospective tenant any vacant dwelling unit that the landlord
knows has a current bed bug infestation. If a bed bug infestation is evident on
visual inspection, the landlord is considered to have notice. Additionally,
this law does not impose a duty on a landlord to inspect a dwelling unit or the
common areas of the premises for bed bugs if the landlord has no notice of a
suspected or actual bed bug infestation. A landlord may not engage in any
retaliatory conduct against a tenant who has notified the landlord of finding
or reasonably suspecting a bed bug infestation on the property.
Tenants
must cooperate
This law requires tenants to cooperate with the
inspection to facilitate the detection and treatment of bed bugs, including
providing requested information necessary to facilitate the detection of bed
bugs to the pest control operator. It permits entry into a tenant's unit
selected by the PCO to conduct inspection for bedbugs and permits entry for
follow-up inspections of surrounding units until bed bugs are eliminated, as
long as the entry complies with requirements for notice and other provisions of
Civil Code Section 1954.
In general, this law espouses various policy goals
regarding the control of bed bugs including the importance of cooperation among
landlords, tenants and pest control operators; the importance of early
detection; best practices among pest control operators; and the importance of
tenants to cooperate by reducing clutter, washing clothes and the like.
AB 551 codified as Civil Code §§ 1942.5, 1954.1 and
1954.600 et seq. The requirement to provide disclosures to new tenants is
effective July 1, 2017 and January 1, 2018 for all other tenants. Other
provisions of law are effective on January 1, 2017.