Bedbugs, landlord won't act

[brooklyn7581]

Here's my situation: I'm a MTM tenant dealing with a LL who is negligent and constantly breaks the law (construction w/o permits, no maintenance, leaks, garbage in halls, doesn't allow Con Ed to read meters, threatens to kick people out if they call 311... etc.).

Our latest issue is a bedbug infestation. We have no super, and LL never fixes problems, so we called an exterminator ourselves, and LL said he wouldn't reimburse us. Fine. Only then he admitted that two other units in the building had bedbugs, and he paid for their exterminators. We talked to other tenants who had bedbugs, and they said they aren't completely gone. We called LL to request a building-wide inspection and, if necessary, extermination. He said our apartment was taken care of, so this is not an emergency (i.e., he's not going to do anything). But the bedbugs will just keep coming back if they're in other apartments, and in the meantime we're living out of plastic bags.

I tried to verify with DHCR that we are really unregulated (building built in early 1900s; recently converted into 6 units from original 3 units). It's not on record with them, but they said all that means is that the LL didn't register it. Since he is is completely untrustworthy and did an illegal basement conversion already, I doubt he'd willingly register the building for rent stabilization. But DHCR said they'd have to conduct an investigation to find out for sure.

In the meantime, do we have any rights at all re: forcing him to arrange and pay for bedbug extermination? Or should we just move out, since we are MTM? We're putting together a letter requesting that he deal with this and plan to send it certified mail, but some tenants won't sign it because they're afraid of being kicked out.

[queensborough]

Since you are a month to month, and if it is at all possible for you to move without it being a hardship, I would recommend you leave. We have had bedbugs, off and on, for over two years. After several treatments, we have still been unable to get rid of them completely. The LL paid, but it took him months to get the exterminator to come, and he wasn't happy about it. We spray our own apartment now every two weeks. This is the only way we can keep them from taking over completely.

You're right about treating all the apartments, but even then there is no guarantee, because some people are just more vigilant than others in doing what needs to be done.

Unfortunately as a MtoM tenants, you don't have many rights. Keep calling 311 until he does something about it.