If You're Worried About Insecticides' Effects, Tell Your Landlord

Q: With all the recent talk in your column and Web chats about bedbugs and cockroaches, I wonder what the regulations are regarding insecticide use in apartments. I live in an older building with a bug problem. People frequently come in to spray my apartment when I am at work. I am told to cover all food and empty all cabinets.

Over the two years I have lived here, I have come down with increasingly severe colds fairly often. I have been to several doctors and an allergist who come up with nothing unusual. I am beginning to think it could have something to do with the frequent insecticide use. I do not know what is used or how liberally they spray. Can I say no to the landlord concerning this? -- Washington

A: To find out whether the insecticides your landlord is using are legal, contact the District's Department of the Environment, which oversees the issue.

D.C. law says your landlord has a right and responsibility to keep the property free from pests and vermin. If your landlord is within the bounds of legal insecticide use, he can continue to spray.

However, the law also requires that landlords maintain a healthy and safe environment for their tenants. So, in a situation such as this, you have a right to ask your landlord to treat the apartment in a way that is safe for you. Explain that you are concerned about your health -- noting the many doctor appointments -- and your landlord will have to consider changing the way he treats your unit.

I am an international student who is not familiar with local housing laws. I have a serious bedbug infestation in my apartment. Three months ago, when I realized the problem, I spoke to my landlord. He told me that management did not cover bedbugs and that I had to take care of it on my own. I paid a pest-control service to fumigate my apartment. The company has fumigated more than four times, but the bedbugs are still in my apartment.

Now the 90-day guarantee the pest-control firm gave me has expired. I don't know what to do, and I am desperate. Does my landlord have the duty to fumigate my apartment and stop the infestation? Or any obligation to help me to get rid of the bedbugs? -- Washington

Your landlord has an obligation to manage the infestation if your unit is not the only one infested. Talk to your neighbors and find out if they have bedbugs, too. Chances are they do, as those critters generally launch large-scale attacks on apartment buildings.

According to Section 805 of the District's housing code, landlords have to do their part to keep out vermin and rodents. Part 805.3 of the law states, "If an infestation of a single habitation is caused by failure of the owner or licensee to maintain a residential building in a rodent-proof or reasonably insect-proof condition, the exterminating shall be done by the owner or licensee." (By "owner or licensee" the law means what most people would call a landlord.)

Additionally, Section 805.5 holds, "The extermination of vermin and rodents shall be done by the owner or licensee whenever infestation exists in two (2) or more of the habitations in two-family or multiple dwellings."

Your landlord's suggestion that you exterminate might have been an attempt to exploit your lack of familiarity with the local housing laws. He also might have misconceptions about the cause of your bedbugs. Nobody is really an expert on why bedbug outbreaks have resurfaced in recent years. As one of many unconfirmed theories on the topic, people frequently blame international travel.

Any evidence you can dig up that your neighbors also have bedbugs will help persuade your landlord to deal with the extermination. At the very least, if he does not respond, it will serve as a substantial basis for filing a complaint with the local housing office.