The day after my sofa defeat, I spent hours more re-treating the sofa with DE and re-wrapping the frame in plastic. At this point, I was starting to feel pretty demoralized. My landlord was taking his sweet time getting an inspector in to check the rest of the building. I emailed him again asking if there was any word on when there might be an inspection, and his response avoided the issue and went on and on about my upstairs neighbor's baby and them not wanting any chemicals used to treat an infestation.
I had been CC'd on my landlord's original email he sent to the other tenants in the building, but they didn't seem to be hitting "reply all" as far as I could see, as I never saw any response. In the first email he'd been nondescript, simply asking about "bugs" generally and considering the treatment maintenance pest control. In my reply to his email about the upstairs neighbors' sensibilities, I asked if had told the other tenants specifically that they were looking for bed bugs, explaining that unless you are allergic to the bites and/or see the bugs, you aren't just going to notice them hanging around like you would ants, spiders or gnats.
His reply was a little baffling. "Are you suggesting to shut down the entire building?"
Um.
Huh?
I replied, no, I just think they should know specifically what they should be looking for. About an hour later, I was CC'd on another email in which he specified bed bugs, without passing along any of the information about how to look for them. I was worried that maybe one of the other units in the building was a major vector of infestation, and it started to drive me crazy that it was taking so long for my landlord to get an inspector in to discern the extent of the problem.
When I returned to work the next day, I felt it was time to let the rest of my co-workers know what was going on. I'd been reluctant at first because of the stigma associated with bugs. I didn't want anything to think I was dirty and didn't want to freak anyone out about the possibility that I'd transported them into the office. Rather than making an announcement at staff meeting that morning, I decided to go through and individually speak with each of my colleagues who weren't already in the know. Rather than be horrified at my uncleanliness, they were all incredibly sympathetic. Some even developed the empathetic itch - as I explained, in addition to my own unconscious scratching, I noticed theirs.
The following day marked 12 days since the discovery and a week since I had notified my landlord. Concerned at his lack of action, I posted a question on a legal advice forum asking how long was reasonable for him to wait to act. Because it was an unmoderated forum, I got snarky replies, unhelpful replies, downright mean replies, and one or two that confirmed what I suspected: he should have already had an inspector. But because it was an unmoderated forum I had no way to verify the integrity of the responders. I suddenly remembered a former co-worker from my last job, who volunteered at San Francisco's tenants rights union. I explained what was going on and asked about my landlord's rights and responsibilities as well as my own, and how long was reasonable to wait for my landlord to act.
My former co-worker wasn't able to help, but her husband still works at the SF tenants' union. She passed my email along to him and said he would reply in the next couple of days. It only took him a day to respond. Luckily, he has specifically handled bed bug cases and had quite a lot of information to give me.
He said generally, a landlord should be given 30 days to respond to a repair request, unless the problem was an emergency or something considered to make the unit uninhabitable. In that case, the response should be within 48 hours. Since I was having allergic reactions to the bites, missing work to deal with the problem and become sleep deprived, I was told this would be considered an uninhabitable condition. I could contract the pest control service myself and then deduct the cost from my rent. I would also likely be entitled to a rent reduction of 25-50% from the time I notified my landlord to the time the treatment began. And the most important piece of information: whether or not I brought the bed bugs in through some chance encounter, in a multi-unit rental it is the landlord's responsibility to pay for extermination.
I emailed my landlord again asking about when there would be an inspection: he still didn't have an answer, and started talking about some company in Georgia from whom he could buy a home treatment kit and do the work himself, much to my chagrin. I knew how many hours it had taken me to deal with my sofa, the living room in general, and the bed. Acting alone, I was pretty sure my landlord wouldn't have the ability to effectively treat 4 units.
I had a little mini melt-down, at which point a co-worker told me about some drug her doctor had prescribed her when she had an allergic reaction. The brand name was AtaraxAtarax. An hour or so later, they informed me the prescriptions had been called in.
That night, for the first in almost a fortnight, I slept deep and hard, and woke up not exactly fully rested, but much more rested than I had felt in days. The funny thing about being rested enough? Your stress level goes down almost instantly. Feeling less anxious, I decided to try again to appeal to my landlord's sense (or lack) of urgency.
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