Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bill: Landlord Liability for Bed Bug Infestations in Georgia
| Citation | Vol. 34 No. 2 |
| Publication year | 2018 |
Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bill: Landlord Liability for Bed Bug Infestations in Georgia
Megan M. Harrison
Georgia State University College of Law, mharrison24@student.gsu.edu
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Although the historical relationship between bed bugs and humans dates back to ancient Egypt, the common bed bug, or Cimex lectularius, vanished from the beds of Americans around World War II.1 In the late 1990s, however, our bloodsucking bedfellows returned.2 Bed bug infestations are a growing public health issue.3 Bed bugs are now found in all fifty states, with populations in five states reaching epidemic levels.4 Both the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) consider bed bugs a "pest of significant public health importance."5
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Despite their name, bed bugs are not limited to the bed, the bedroom, or even the home.6 Infestations exist in both public and private settings, and anyone visiting an infested area can leave with several hitchhiking bugs in tow.7 Bed bugs spread quickly, and infestations are costly.8 Due to their small size, quick reproduction, and pesticide resistance, controlling and remediating bed bug infestations is distinctly challenging.9 Untreated or inadequately treated infestations quickly spread because bed bugs travel room-to-room through cracks in walls and ventilation.10 Bed bugs present a particularly intractable infestation even for experts.11 Infestations in multi-unit apartment complexes are the most frequent, the most expensive, and the most challenging to control.12 Low-income
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tenants, in particular, often lack the financial means to respond effectively to infestations.13
The current structure of landlord-tenant law encourages behaviors that contribute to the spread of bed bugs.14 In response to growing infestations, some states are passing bed bug-specific legislation to clarify landlord and tenant roles when bed bugs infest rental complexes.15 However, in the absence of such laws, it is unclear which party is responsible for the costs of an infestation.16 Notably, for purposes of liability, identifying the source of a bedbug infestation is difficult, especially in multi-unit facilities, and it is almost impossible to prove fault.17 The legal ambiguity, coupled with high extermination costs, encourages disputes over liability.18 While parties debate, infestations are left untreated and spread, increasing the cost of future remediation.19 To reduce bed bug populations across communities, prevent litigation, and curb the spread of infestations, a legal solution is necessary.20
Georgia is not among the states with legislation clarifying landlord-tenant roles in bed bug infestations.21 Untreated bed bug infestations are a public health concern and necessitate a reexamination of Georgia landlord-tenant law to explore options for incentivizing landlord-tenant behaviors that curtail, rather than contribute to, the spread of the bugs. Part I of this note outlines the bed bugs' biology and places landlord-tenant disputes in a public
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health context. Part II examines Georgia case law, statutes, and local codes, and argues that although current law and policy seemingly require landlords pay to remediate bed bug infestations, a clear assignment of liability is necessary to reduce the burgeoning bed bug population. Finally, Part III proposes the Georgia legislature adopt a statutory solution similar to recent bed bug legislation in other states.
I. Background
Bed bugs and humans have slept together for thousands of years.22 While the bed bug almost disappeared after World War II, our unwanted bedfellows returned about fifteen years ago and spread across the United States.23 Bed bugs now cause "substantial loss[es] of economic revenue, both nationally and internationally."24 In Georgia, the number of bed bug infestations is growing.25
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A. Bed Bugs: About
The general physiology of bed bugs contributes to the difficulty of the legal questions surrounding them. Bed bugs reproduce quickly when food sources are present, so the introduction of just a small number of bed bugs quickly leads to a full-blown infestation.26 Further complicating extermination methods, bed bugs may live for over a year in the absence of a host.27 They are most active in the early hours before dawn, when they emerge to feed.28 Bed bugs are drawn to warm bodies and the carbon dioxide emissions of humans, and are "extremely efficient at finding and extracting their blood meals."29 Unless feeding or searching for food, the bed bug hides beyond the reach of most pesticides, tucked deep in the cracks of walls and headboards, and in the seams of mattresses and clothes.30
1. Physical and Psychological Harms
Bed bug bites occur most frequently on exposed areas of skin—generally, the arms, neck, and face of an unsuspecting sleeper.31 Bed bug saliva has an anesthetic effect, so bites are usually painless.32 Reactions vary significantly, and some people will not react at all or even notice the bed bugs' bites.33 Typically, a few hours after a bite, the surrounding skin becomes raised and irritated, forming small,
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itchy skin lesions or welts.34 Although bites may go unnoticed, they can result in more serious medical complications.35 Severe infestations can cause anemia, and children living with infestations may become "listless and pale."36 In rare cases, allergic reactions trigger life-threatening anaphylaxis.37
Although physical symptoms are generally mild, infestations seriously impact mental health.38 Bed bugs are "serious psychosocial stressor[s]."39 Infestations can trigger "moderate-to-severe" psychological effects, including PTSD.40 People facing infestations describe fears of waking up to find themselves covered in feasting bugs.41 Unsurprisingly, debilitating anxiety and insomnia commonly occur.42 Because bed bugs target areas of skin exposed when sleeping, the aesthetic results affect individuals both socially and economically, limiting job prospects and public interaction, especially when bites frequently occur on the face.43 Though infestations are not caused by uncleanliness or dirty households, such associations persist, and people with bed bugs may develop socially-avoidant behaviors to avoid real or imagined stigma.44 Neighbors
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may ostracize tenants in multi-unit apartment complexes, in particular, especially if bed bugs spread.45
Additionally, growing desperation may cause tenants to adopt maladaptive behaviors more injurious than the bugs themselves, such as frantic overspending on treatment methods or pesticide overuse.46 Some tenants, driven by anxiety, douse their homes, bodies, and beds with dangerous chemicals or pesticides.47 Over-the-counter pesticides do not effectively exterminate bed bugs, but they can cause serious health problems in humans after prolonged exposure.48
2. Economic Harms
Economic costs from bed bug infestations significantly affect both the individual and society at large. Households living with bed bug infestations may experience losses in "occupational or educational productivity."49 Although the EPA and CDC do not cite exact numbers, their Joint Statement on Bed Bugs states, "the economic losses from health care, lost wages, lost revenue, and reduced productivity" are "substantial."50 Even the involvement of experts does not guarantee complete eradication and still results in staggering extermination costs.51 Treating a single unit can range from $500 to
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$1,200, and multiple treatments are generally required.52 In a multi-unit complex, it is also necessary to treat adjacent units.53
The economic harms of bed bug infestations are not limited to extermination fees. Often, those living with an infestation discard personal property, including mattresses.54 Landlords generally require tenants to throw out their possessions as part of the treatment process.55 Low-income tenants, in particular, may be unable to replace certain essential items removed during extermination, and as a result, they are forced to choose between paying for a new mattress or paying rent and sleeping on the floor.56
B. Bed Bugs: A Public Health Problem
Because bed bug infestations pose negative health consequences, are environmentally communicable, and impact community health, scholars sometimes consider bed bugs a public health problem.57 Public health professionals recognize a variety of factors, including housing and environment, as social determinates of health.58 Public health law examines the "legal powers and duties of the state, in collaboration with its partners . . . to assure the conditions for people to be healthy."59 Bed bugs are more than an individual problem, as
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untreated infestations spill over into the population at large.60 Thus, legal interventions aimed at curbing the spread of bed bugs are based on the same rationale as governmental policies to control communicable disease.61 In fact, public health professionals cite to government failure to react appropriately to early reports of bed bug infestations as one factor that contributed to their spread.62
The United States public health system is a broad network of various federal, state, and tribal agencies, as well as more than 2,700 local health departments (LHDs).63 State statutes define the roles of public health agencies and local governments.64 Thus, public health programs, policy, and infrastructure vary from state to state and locality to locality.65 The federal government acknowledges the public health significance of bed bugs. In 2002, for example, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), of which the CDC is a part, joined with the EPA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to recognize bed bugs as a pest of "significant public health importance."66 However, this...
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