Bedbugs Put Bite on Co-op Deals

   I own a co-op in NYC and the building had its annual inspections about a week ago. During the inspection, someone from the company that operates the co-op comes by and looks at everyone's living quarters to ensure that no one's flouting the co-op's bylaws or living in filth. My apartment is on the second floor (of an eight floor building) so the lady that came by had pretty much seen everyone's apartment by the time she reached me. They start on the eighth floor and then head downwards when they do their inspections.

    In any case, she was reasonably attractive (usually the first thing I notice) and she went around the apartment with a clipboard and made some notes. I asked if anyone in the building had bed bugs because that was the hot topic in the city this year. She hesitated for a minute but then said, "No, but as you know, we've had a roach problem in some apartments for months now." Her hesitation was a concern but maybe she was thinking about another building since they operate a few of them.

   According to a WSJ article today, bed bug disclosure will soon be the law:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704300604575554591824168312.html

"Selling a co-op apartment has been tricky in today's market, but now it may get harder—because of a mistake in a new bedbug disclosure law for renters.

State housing authorities have ruled that buyers of co-ops, but not condos, in New York City are entitled to learn the recent history of bedbug infestation in the building and the apartment they plan to buy.

The law's prime sponsor said it was intended to provide renters with bed bug histories, but through a drafting error, the state housing agency has determined it also triggered the same requirement for co-op buyers.

The ruling is a major—if inadvertent—expansion of the new disclosure law. It could unveil now-hidden bedbug histories in some of New York's most expensive co-ops at a time when outbreaks of the tiny nocturnal blood-sucking insects have spread across the city"

   I'm all for this law. I don't plan on selling the co-op since the building imposes a 20% flip tax and I'll just give it to one of my siblings if I ever move out or buy another place. I saw a roach scampering in the kitchen earlier this year and I put out Boric Acid which appears to have solved the problem. I think the roaches migrate throughout the building by crawling on the pipes which reach every apartment and provide them with the means to go everywhere and into every apartment.