Should landlords be allowed to screen renters for bedbugs?
It is common knowledge that landlords screen potential renters to reduce their risk. They will ask questions related to occupation, lifestyle and make their own judgments based on the potential renters age, appearance and other characteristics. Such questions are used to weed out renters who might be prone to late or missed rent payments or cause damage to the rental unit. In addition, some say that screening potential new tenants protects the building’s existing tenants from having undesirable neighbors that are smokers or drug users, noisy, combative, and a host of other problems.
Canada-Bedbugs.com received a call from a couple in Toronto that had been asked by their potential landlord to provide a doctor’s note from their family physician saying that the doctor had not treated the couple for bedbug infestations at anytime in the past two years (it should be noted that the landlord also asked for verification that the couple were non-smokers). Is this ethical?
At what point does the process screening tenants become intrusive? Is it fair to discriminate against a potential rental candidate simply because they have battled bedbugs in the past? It is fair to your existing tenants to allow a renter to move in if they have not been bedbug free for at least two years?
We do not know about the policies of the Government of Ontario, but the Government of British Columbia’s Residential Tenancy Branch explains that there are no regulations against requiring the prospective tenants to provide a doctor’s note confirming that they don’t have any bites or bugs on them at the current time.
Doctor’s notes will not guarantee that prospective tenants won’t bring the bugs into your building. Nor will the prospective tenants doctors always be aware of bedbug infestation that their patients might be trying to escape.
What is fair to the existing tenants of a rental building? What is fair to potential renters trying to escape a bedbug infestation?
That is a NIMBY (not in my back yard) situation. Who wants to meet their new neighbors and then find out that they are bringing bedbugs into the building with them? I’ll bet that all responsible building managers will soon add bedbug free requirements to all their rental agreements. If I do my due diligence before moving into a building that is not on the bedbug registry and I pay a premium for a bedbug free building, so I don’t want my investment to be comprised by bedbug infested neighbors.
Norm- what if you are infected with budbugs through no fault of your own and want to make a clean start in a new home?
I am pretty sure that my new neighbors are moving in from a bedbug infested building in Vancouver and I am terrified that the bedbugs are going to come in through the walls. I would preferred if my landlord consulted the building residents before allowing them to move in or at least warn us. Who knows how many bedbug eggs were scattered in the hallways as they moved their belongings in. Ugh
Firt bedbugs do not scatter eggs, when layed they are cemented with a glue like substance to protect them . Most ofton in a place close to where they will feed. They travel along electracal lines within the walls and come out at night through any crack or opening around wall outlets. They come up through crack within wood floors or from under bace boards. When my city first became under attack i went and researched these little blod suckers like crazy. i began ancounter attack befor they could find a way in. I filled every crack in my hard wood floors then varathaned them. i caucked every bace board and around every wall outlet I inspected every seam on every wall and filled any and all cracks around windows and doors. I also inspected aroud all light fixtures. I rented a steamer the only thing that kills all the bugs as well as the eggs is steam or heat over 115 degrees. I inspected with a high powered flashlight all furniture and then steames everything. Knock on wood nothing was seen then or to this day. even after the unit across the hall was rented and bugs were brought in. after an inspection my unit was deemed bug free. when two other apartments above said unit and ajacent were found to have them. I am not saying this will remain so but at least i did what i could do to prevent them getting in. we should not judge perhaps we should help others in their fight in a war that holds a common enemy