Bed bugs in rented homes: Whose responsibility is it – tenant or landlord?
There has been a surge in bed bug reports since the deputy mayor of Paris sombrely announced “no one is safe” from the blood-sucking creatures.
Paris is grappling with a well-documented outbreak as experts warn things could be just as bad in London.
Luton Council said it is fielding an “alarming number” of calls to tackle bed bugs, while one pest control company told Sky News call-outs had risen by 17% in one month.
But if you rent a property and you’ve got a bed bug infestation at home, whose responsibility is it to deal with? Can you pass it on to your landlord or are you left picking up the bill?
Here’s what you need to know.
Who must deal with bedbugs – the landlord or tenant?
Bedbugs are not covered by a specific piece of legislation in the UK.
But landlords must deal with the bed bugs if the property was infested when a tenant moved in, Blago Manov, director of Bed Bug Hunters, told Sky News.
If a tenant brings the bugs into the house – whether that’s on luggage, clothes, secondhand furniture or via a visitor – it’s down to them to deal with the problem.
Al McClenahan from Justice for Tenants told Sky News bed bugs present “a more complex situation” than larger pests such as mice.
But the general rule is that bed bugs in the property at the start of the tenancy are the landlord’s problem, and those introduced later are the tenant’s responsibility.
There is another scenario where the landlord may be responsible: “If the rental property is in an area that requires a licence from the council, then the licence may require that the landlord keep the property pest-free, in which case they would have an obligation to get rid of the bed bugs.
“You can tell if a property is licenced, as a certificate will likely be hung in the entrance hallway,” he added.
Pest control treats an apartment against bed bugs in Paris
What if the landlord and tenant disagree over who is responsible?
These disagreements are common, Mr Manov said.
Pest control companies are able to determine how long the infestation has been there – and therefore who is responsible.
They do this by looking at the number of eggs and bugs there are. Because there is a pattern to the creatures’ reproduction, they can work out by the numbers how long they have been there.
“If we determined that the bed bugs were there for more than five or six months, and the tenant moved in a week or two weeks ago, our report could be used by the tenants to claim the money for the treatment from the landlord,” Mr Manov said.
Disagreements can also be addressed by going to the local council who can send someone to investigate. If they find the landlord is responsible, they will be forced to pay.
Sometimes it is not clear-cut who should take responsibility, Mr Manov said. It is possible to pinpoint the age of the infestation “plus or minus one month” and sometimes it will not be obvious if that falls before or after a tenant moved in.
In those cases, sometimes the tenant and landlord will split the bill – but other times the dispute ends up in court.
Mr McClenahan said if you need advice on what you can do if your landlord refuses to act, or want clarification on whether your property is licenced, it is best to contact your local council’s private rented sector enforcement team.
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Inside a home infested with bed bugs
What about council properties?
Most councils will provide bedbug treatment, and if you are a council tenant it may be free – this varies by local authority but should be listed alongside pest control prices on their website.
Councils, like private landlords and housing associations, are obliged to make sure properties are safe and clean when tenants move in, and this should include checking for bed bugs.
While councils offer free or cheaper pest treatment than private companies, Mr Manov warned it’s also less effective as they use insecticides, which slowly poison the bugs and often need more than one treatment.
What should you do if you’re moving into a rental property?
Check for bed bugs – particularly if you’re moving into a furnished place.
Bed bugs like wood, so inspect the bedframe and headboard closely, Mr Manov said.
Checking for bugs is also important if you are moving into a houseshare where other people already live.
If the current tenants don’t react to bed bugs – and 30% of the population doesn’t – there may be an infestation they don’t know about.
In a shared house, if all the tenants are on the same contract and bed bugs are introduced partway through, it would be the joint responsibility of the tenants to get rid of them, Mr McClenahan said.
But in a shared property where each tenant has an individual contract for their room, if one tenant introduced bed bugs and they spread to another person’s room, it would be the landlord’s responsibility to resolve, he said.
The UK-US trade deal has been signed and is “done”, US President Donald Trump has said as he met Sir Keir Starmer at the G7 summit.
The US president told reporters in Canada: “We signed it, and it’s done. It’s a fair deal for both. It’ll produce a lot of jobs, a lot of income.”
Sir Keir said the document “implements” the deal to cut tariffs on cars and aerospace, describing it as a “really important agreement”.
“So this is a very good day for both of our countries – a real sign of strength,” the prime minister added.
Mr Trump added that the UK was “very well protected” against any future tariffs, saying: “You know why? Because I like them”.
However, he did not say whether levies on British steel exports to the US would be set to 0%, saying “we’re gonna let you have that information in a little while”.
Mr Trump also praised Sir Keir as a “great” prime minister, adding: “We’ve been talking about this deal for six years, and he’s done what they haven’t been able to do.”
He added: “We’re very longtime partners and allies and friends and we’ve become friends in a short period of time.
“He’s slightly more liberal than me to put it mildly… but we get along.”
Sir Keir added that “we make it work”.
As the pair exited a mountain lodge in the Canadian Rockies where the summit is being held, Mr Trump held up a physical copy of the trade agreement to show reporters.
Several leaves of paper fell from the binding, and Sir Keir quickly stooped to pick them up, saying: “A very important document.”
Sir Keir Starmer picks up paper from the UK-US trade deal after Donald Trump dropped it at the G7 summit. Pic: Reuters
The US president also appeared to mistakenly refer to a “trade agreement with the European Union” at one point as he stood alongside the British prime minister.
Mr Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs on countries in April. At the time, he announced 10% “reciprocal” rates on all UK exports – as well as separately announced 25% levies on cars and steel.
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In a joint televised phone call in May, Sir Keir and Mr Trump announced the UK and US had agreed on a trade deal – but added the details were being finalised.
Ahead of the G7 summit, the prime minister said he would meet Mr Trump for “one-on-one” talks, and added the agreement “really matters for the vital sectors that are safeguarded under our deal, and we’ve got to implement that”.
Whitehall officials tried to convince Michael Gove to go to court to cover up the grooming scandal in 2011, Sky News can reveal.
Dominic Cummings, who was working for Lord Gove at the time, has told Sky News that officials in the Department for Education (DfE) wanted to help efforts by Rotherham Council to stop a national newspaper from exposing the scandal.
In an interview with Sky News, Mr Cummings said that officials wanted a “total cover-up”.
Politics latest: Grooming gangs findings unveiled
The revelation shines a light on the institutional reluctance of some key officials in central government to publicly highlight the grooming gang scandal.
In 2011, Rotherham Council approached the Department for Education asking for help following inquiries by The Times. The paper’s then chief reporter, the late Andrew Norfolk, was asking about sexual abuse and trafficking of children in Rotherham.
The council went to Lord Gove’s Department for Education for help. Officials considered the request and then recommended to Lord Gove’s office that the minister back a judicial review which might, if successful, stop The Times publishing the story.
Lord Gove rejected the request on the advice of Mr Cummings. Sources have independently confirmed Mr Cummings’ account.
Education Secretary Michael Gove in 2011. Pic: PA
Mr Cummings told Sky News: “Officials came to me in the Department of Education and said: ‘There’s this Times journalist who wants to write the story about these gangs. The local authority wants to judicially review it and stop The Times publishing the story’.
“So I went to Michael Gove and said: ‘This council is trying to actually stop this and they’re going to use judicial review. You should tell the council that far from siding with the council to stop The Times you will write to the judge and hand over a whole bunch of documents and actually blow up the council’s JR (judicial review).’
“Some officials wanted a total cover-up and were on the side of the council…
“They wanted to help the local council do the cover-up and stop The Times’ reporting, but other officials, including in the DfE private office, said this is completely outrageous and we should blow it up. Gove did, the judicial review got blown up, Norfolk stories ran.”
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Grooming gangs victim speaks out
The judicial review wanted by officials would have asked a judge to decide about the lawfulness of The Times’ publication plans and the consequences that would flow from this information entering the public domain.
A second source told Sky News that the advice from officials was to side with Rotherham Council and its attempts to stop publication of details it did not want in the public domain.
One of the motivations cited for stopping publication would be to prevent the identities of abused children entering the public domain.
There was also a fear that publication could set back the existing attempts to halt the scandal, although incidents of abuse continued for many years after these cases.
Sources suggested that there is also a natural risk aversion amongst officials to publicity of this sort.
Read more on grooming gangs:
What we do and don’t know from the data
A timeline of the scandal
Mr Cummings, who ran the Vote Leave Brexit campaign and was Boris Johnson’s right-hand man in Downing Street, has long pushed for a national inquiry into grooming gangs to expose failures at the heart of government.
He said the inquiry, announced today, “will be a total s**tshow for Whitehall because it will reveal how much Whitehall worked to try and cover up the whole thing.”
He also described Mr Johnson, with whom he has a long-standing animus, as a “moron’ for saying that money spent on inquiries into historic child sexual abuse had been “spaffed up the wall”.
Asked by Sky News political correspondent Liz Bates why he had not pushed for a public inquiry himself when he worked in Number 10 in 2019-20, Mr Cummings said Brexit and then COVID had taken precedence.
“There are a million things that I wanted to do but in 2019 we were dealing with the constitutional crisis,” he said.
The Department for Education and Rotherham Council have been approached for comment.
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