I just purchased a 2 family home in Jersey City, NJ. Purchased it in August 2013. Now both tenants complain about bed bugs. I got an exterminator to do the proper treatment. I paid $600 for this job. Tenants are still complaing about bed bugs, so I need to do the second treatmeant. My question is is the LL still respoible for second treatment? I want the tenant to pay for the second part. Can someone help with NJ laws?

Did your exterminator not give you a guarantee? It's my understanding that it's normal procedure to guarantee the problem to not reoccur within 4/6/whatever months, or they do a follow-up treatment for free.

Another thing you might look into (post-treatment) is a bedbug-detecting dog. The dog will alert to the scent of live bedbugs in one of their life stages. It's actually rather cool to watch... the handler will see if the dog alerts upon entry to the premises, and if not (which is a good thing), will proceed to systematically indicate a number of surfaces every few inches for the dog to investigate... a point on the sill, an outlet, a piece of baseboard, etc. Often times, they'll have multiple dogs, and you can repeat the process with another canine. Of course, not all dog outfits are created equal, and the dogs have to be kept in training every day, etc, etc, etc, but it's a nice bit of third-party reassurance.

NJ people can talk about NJ specifically, but the way it was explained to me was that Annie might bring the bedbugs into a multi, and it's Annie's problem, but it's my job to keep it out of Bob and Charlie and Danny's units. And so usually the ll ends up doing the treatment because we have more at stake to squelch the problem immediately, and Annie's not going to take responsibility for the infestation, etc.

Before you try heat treatment, try the $20 solution.

Our tenant called us last month and said they had bed bugs. They are in a quadplex unit. Apparently they have been wrestling with bed bugs since July when they brought home a used sofa. They had been trying to get rid of them by washing clothes and removing furniture. By November, they gave up.

They called Orkin who came out and gave them a quote of $1700 to heat up the house to 130 degrees to kill all bugs and eggs. They would also have to take all clothes to laundry mat to heat them up, and move all the furniture etc. Some things would melt during the treatment. They couldn't afford the payment all at once, so they asked if we could pay Orkin and they would pay us back over time. They are good tenants and probably would have paid us back.

However, I went on-line to see how effective this treatment would be, and came across food grade diatomaceous earth (FGDE) as a treatment. FGDE is razor sharp at a microscopic level. The bugs walk thru this powder, and it cuts them up like a razor blade.

So I bought a bag of FGDE for $20, put it in a baby powder bottle and gave it to the tenant. The baby powder bottle allows you to poof out a light dusting. I instructed the tenants to dust the house lightly. You shouldn't be able to see any powder on the floor or cloths.

They did the whole house. I checked with them last week and they say the bugs are GONE. $20 vs $1700.

I talked to my bug man today. He said he uses diatomaceous earth. He said the key is to read up and know where to put it - including removing outlet/switch/phone jack covers and dusting inside... caulk all baseboard, cracks, etc.

For $20 bucks and to keep a res I would "help" them do this.

The fact it took so long for them to reappear is proof the first treatment worked.

I suspect they brought more BBs home, perhaps from the same place as earlier - school, daycare, workplace, hotel, garage sale, grandma's house at Christmas...

Spend time educating them.

Kunjan, sorry, mis- read your post.

"Still" there means the treatment was not effective. How much time has passed?

K, call him and ask.

Future: This is where your membership in a local a