Personally Injured By Bed Bugs: A Closer Look At Your Legal Rights

You wake in the middle of the night and grab a flashlight. Much to your horror, the new rental furniture you just had brought to your home is swarming with blood-sucking vampires in the form of tiny bugs. Unfortunately, it is not at all uncommon for unwitting customers to rent furniture and wake up to find that they have actually brought home more than what they bargained for. If you have managed to bring home some uninvited extras with furniture you thought to be safe, you may have a good reason for getting in touch with a personal injury attorney for advice. 

You may be entitled to pest control services paid for by the rental furniture store. 

Bed bug eradication is one of the most challenging pest control issues that a homeowner can face. It is highly unlikely that you can get by with buying a few cans of pesticides over-the-counter and you will most likely have to have several visits from a professional pest control company before the problem is eliminated. Even then, you will need followup visits down the road to make sure the bed bugs stay gone. If it is the rental company's fault that you have bed bugs, they should be willing to pay for the extermination process. 

You could be entitled to having new furniture delivered to replace what you already have.

Furniture rental stores must provide customers with a product that is free of defects and a bed bug infestation would easily be considered a defect. Therefore, the store will be under obligation to provide you with replacement furniture pieces if you are having problems with what was initially delivered. You may not want to get more furniture from the same store, but you should ask that brand new furniture be delivered straight from the distributor or manufacturer. 

There is a chance that your situation is cause to file a personal injury claim. 

Bed bugs can be really big deal--taking over your furniture, infesting your carpets and clothing, and even making their way into baseboards and electrical outlets. Therefore, after a major bed bug infestation, you could be left having to replace a lot of items. Furthermore, dealing with bed bugs can be enough to cause plenty of emotional trauma. A severe enough infestation could possibly leaving you with nightmares, insomnia, and anxiety about being in your bed at all. Plus, if the rental store was unwilling to make the situation right when you reported a problem, you could have grounds for a lawsuit. 

Share