Tenants or Landlords? Who Pays For Treatments And Infestations Of Bed Bugs?

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Tenants or Landlords? Who Pays For Treatments And Infestations Of Bed Bugs?

3 May 2024 LisaLondonHandyman Comments Off

We prepared this guidance due to the increase in post-tenancy properties that we handle at London Handyman.

In the UK, it is customary to draft comprehensive tenancy agreements that address pest infestations and assign liability when renting. It also heavily depends on a number of other factors, though. There are certain grey areas when it comes to renting and pest infestation. There are a lot of ambiguities.

Tenants promise to maintain and take care of the property when they sign a lease. But what duty does the landlord have? Pest control, particularly with regard to bed bugs, can be a challenging issue.

If there is an infestation of bed bugs, action needs to be taken immediately. If you don’t, you run the chance of the infestation spreading to more rooms or even to nearby homes or flats.

When do London landlords have to take care of bed bug infestations?

When handling a pest infestation in a rental, the following two questions are crucial to ask:


“Under the terms of the lease, who is accountable for a pest problem?”
“What date did the infestation start?”
Experts in thermal bed bug treatment stress the importance of being clear about this: When did the rental’s pest problem start? The landlord bears the financial burden of treating bed bugs that were there when the new renter moved in or earlier.

One of the terms of every lease is that the tenant is responsible for maintaining the property and notifying the landlord of any damage or other issues.

Infestations with pests are included in this.

The cost of the pest treatment may be borne by the tenant if:

When tenants discovered bed bugs, they delayed telling the landlord.
When tenants discovered bed bugs, they made no attempt to eradicate them.
Tenant carelessness was the cause of the infestation.

Regardless of who is specified in the lease as being in charge of treatment, tenants are required to notify the landlord as soon as they become aware of a bed bug infestation.

Renters arrange the treatment if the landlord is confident that there was no infestation before tenants moved in.

Professional pest exterminators Bed Bug Specialists do not advise trying do-it-yourself ways to treat a bed bug infestation. When using such methods, it usually doesn’t work well because the insects develop resistance to most over-the-counter insecticides, making it unable to treat them successfully.

DIY bed bug management attempts may actually exacerbate the problem by driving the bed bugs to spread out and seek refuge in other locations. If you don’t seek medical attention after that, their population will increase.

Heat treatment is the most successful method of treating bed bugs. Only experts with specialised tools perform it.


In the event that the landlord is found to be at fault and they decline to take action, the tenant may seek redress from the neighbourhood municipal council. Not all councils provide pest management as an option, and they are not required to handle it. However, if the tenant files a complaint, they have the right to hold the landlord accountable for covering the cost of administrative fees and bed bug treatment.

However, the landlord has the right to keep the deposit if the renter is at fault and refuses to fix the issue or hire a service to do it.

How should the situation be set up?

Collaboration and compromise are key as neither party enjoys having a bed bug infestation. There’s no justification for fighting and delaying the treatment. The annoying bugs will go away for the advantage of both parties. Tenant and landlord must cooperate and make concessions for the greater good in order to accomplish that.
If you want to start the job as soon as possible, you must communicate. To ensure open communication and a comprehension of one another’s perspectives, engage in conversation. to steer clear of circumstances in which one party believes the other will take action against the property or not.

In conclusion, we must state that a bed bug infestation in a rental property can be resolved provided that all sides are prepared to negotiate and make concessions when needed. whoever is to blame for the infestation.

It is imperative to take prompt and appropriate action to safeguard the inhabitants of both the contaminated property and the nearby properties.