Who Should Arrange Treatment in a Rental Property?

Why It Is Normally the Landlord

• The treatment is to the property, not to the tenant's possessions. It involves the structure, the fixed furniture and often more than one room
• Access is the landlord's to give where more than one unit is involved, or where communal areas are
• The scope is usually wider than one tenancy, and a tenant cannot commission work in a flat that is not theirs
• Most tenancy agreements put pest control with the landlord where the tenant did not cause the problem
• A partial job is worse than none, and a tenant paying for one room is by definition a partial job

The "Who Brought It In" Argument

This is where these conversations stall, and it is worth knowing that in practice the question is very often unanswerable.

• They arrive with luggage, with second-hand furniture, with visitors, or through a shared wall
• An infestation can run for weeks or months before anybody is bitten enough to notice
• That means a report in month three of a tenancy tells you very little about the source
• A previous tenant's unresolved problem looks exactly like a new one

Which is why arguing about the origin is usually a way of not arranging the inspection. The population grows either way, and the argument gets more expensive rather than clearer.

If You Are the Tenant

1. Report it in writing — email or the agent's portal, not a phone call. Date it
2. Say what you have found, in which room, and since when
3. Attach photographs of anything found, in place, and of bites
4. Ask for an inspection rather than for a treatment. It is a smaller thing to agree to and it settles the question
5. Keep every message, and follow up in writing after any phone call
6. Give access promptly when it is arranged, and prepare properly — a missed appointment resets everything

What Not To Do While You Wait

This matters, because the things people do while waiting are usually the things that make the eventual treatment harder.

• Do not move to the sofa or another bedroom. It is the single most common mistake and it establishes a second site
• Do not use shop sprays or foggers. They scatter a localised population through a property and make the work longer
• Do not throw the mattress out before anybody has seen it — it is evidence, and an unwrapped mattress on a landing is a gift to the rest of the building
• Do not carry bedding through the property loose. Bag it in the room
• Do not stop sleeping in the bed, if you can bear it. An empty bed encourages spread outward, and a treatment works best with the population where it started

Earley: When Nothing Is Happening

1. Put it in writing again, referencing the first report and its date, and ask for a specific date
2. Ask for an inspection specifically. A landlord who will not commit to a treatment will often agree to a look
3. Keep the record. Dates, messages, photographs, and what happened after each one
4. Ask the agent rather than only the landlord, if there is one
5. Speak to the local authority's environmental health team if it has gone on and the property is genuinely affected. That is what they are there for

The record is what makes the last step work, and it is why the first step is "in writing".