Bed Bugs & Society – part 2 of 3

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Our December issue has a special section devoted to bed bugs. Drs. Timothy Gibb, Ameya Gondhalekar and Tyler Gibb were kind enough to make a special contribution to our blog as a tie-in with that issue. Below find part two of their three part post titled ‘Bed Bugs & Society.’ PMP would like thank the authors for their expert analysis.]

The legal side
A powerful voice in the discussion about the true cost of bed bugs lies within the legal profession. When people have sued because of bed bugs, their lawyers have drawn up a lengthy and often generous list of losses incurred by their clients. Lawyers, representing victims of bed bug infestations, have sought compensation for a wide variety of harms, including bites, scarring, emotional distress, post-traumatic stress disorder, personal property damage, loss of property, depreciation of real estate value, loss of employment, breach of contract, injury caused by chemical exposure, lack of consortium, remediation costs and undoubtedly many others.

Curiously, it falls to a judge or jury to actually apply a monetary value to losses incurred due to bed bug infestations. Even though the legal process is somewhat mysterious and the values given to different harms can be highly subjective, it amounts to a definitive answer to the cost of having bed bugs. It turns out that the cost is whatever the judge or jury says it is – for that individual case. Compensatory awards for bed bug infestations have ranged from hundreds of thousands of dollars when the bed bug resurgence was just beginning in the United States, to much less than that now that bed bugs have become a common occurrence. In fact, most states currently do not consider bed bugs as a “regulated pest” that must be reported, disclosed or controlled by a landlord.

What judge and jury have never considered, however, is the cost of bed bugs to society in general. If bed bugs are a pest of the poor, which has been the case for centuries, it follows that the cost of having bed bugs is also borne primarily by the poor.

Societal costs of having bed bugs extend beyond control and health concerns. How our society responds to residents of bed bug-infested homes also can become critically important when determining whether bed bugs hurt people. Do we shun those who are prone to have bed bugs (the poor) more now than we did before? Are we more selective in where we allow them to live, can we evict or deny rental contracts, or make discriminating tenant qualifications? To what extent does a bed bug infestation influence what in-home services we provide, or where we allow potentially bed bug-infested people to frequent?

Imagine the additional cost and harm if financially strapped individuals were required to prove they were bed bug-free before riding public transportation, visiting a local library, checking into a hotel, hospital or being accepted into an apartment or nursing home.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Check back next Wednesday for part 3, which includes information about the ‘the public health side’ of bed bugs.]