Bedbugs Disclosures Now Required by NY State

The state of New York is putting its foot down, but not before making sure the floor is clean. State housing officials will now require landlords to disclose whether bedbugs have been reported in a rental apartment or anywhere in the building. Gov. David Paterson approved a law two weeks ago that demands building owners fill out and sign a form, called the DBB-N, documenting the premises' history of bedbug infestation. The new law was spurred by a sharp increase in bedbug reports in New York City, arguably one of the world's bedbug capitals (the blood-sucking insects prefer densely populated areas). For the first seven months of 2010, the city's housing agency reported 7,021, a 5.7 percent increase over the same months in the previous year. Of course, that number is likely to decline as would-be renters read landlords' disclosure forms -- and run for the suburbs.