After having had my credit history and references raked over the coals and having more or less been told I was lucky to get the chance to pay such an inordinate amount of deposit and find a landlord willing to take a risk on a foreigner like me, I thought they were having a laugh.
Sadly, no. The bedbug infestation in New York is now so bad, it's being written into people's leases that their landlords aren't responsible for getting rid of the pests. Clearly, that's the business of the dirty foreigners they lease the places out to...
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Fortunately, the cost of repair due to bedbug infestation is covered by renter's insurance. Renter's insurance is laughably cheap. There's no reason not to have it.
And, the landlord's disclaimer has a very big hole in it. What if the infestation comes from another tenant, via the common area of the building? The landlord must pay for that.
Finally, I know exactly one person who has had bedbugs. They were able to trace them back to their trip to India. This mania about bedbugs is amazingly overblown. You are statistically more likely to get sick from the NYC subway than you are to be effected by bedbugs.
Thanks Rob, I need to sort out insurance...
The mania is bizarre. Maybe in part because New York is full of people (and has a media) who make a fuss and sue about these kind of things? It is bizarre that I never heard bedbug stories in London, where travel abroad was much much cheaper and easier, and the housing stock is similarly dilapidated etc.
NYC is bound to try and nickel and dime you for EVERYTHING.
Great read by the way. I'm going to enjoy it here, I think.
Yikes!! Touch wood no bedbugs. I am reassured by Rob's comment that the bedbug hysteria is overblown.
YUK!
Yes, us dirty foreigners are so unreliable - no credit history, no US ID...... AND NO CREEPY CRAWLIES!
I'd be more worried about cockroaches than bedbugs - did the lease say anything about cockroaches, or are they just taken for granted in NYC?
Good point - but there was nothing about cockroaches in the lease... I guess they are taken for granted!
I did have to sign a 'mold rider'. And this also floored me, momentarily. It would have been very appropriate for some of the places I lived in the U.K. though...
Okay, now I have seen IT ALL!!! And anyway, I thought we all had bed bugs?
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