Couple Sues Over Bed Bug Infestation

At the time of the first inspection at Orville and Rebecca Brown's Ellicott City apartment, neither the couple nor their 3-year-old daughter had suffered any bed bug bites.

"It was just a cursory inspection," according to attorney Daniel Whitney. The property manager said only that an adjacent unit had an infestation.  That was in May 2010, eight months after the couple had moved into the $1,030/month apartment.

A few months later, Whitney said the Browns starting getting bites.

"One morning Mrs. Brown woke up," he said, "and she had 25 bites."

The couple is now suing Howard Crossing, Hirshfeld Properties and Hirshfeld Management, the management company and owner of Howard Crossing, a 1,350-unit apartment complex in Ellicott City.

"When you are a professional property manager," Whitney said, "you have the duty to keep (properties) habitable and free from infestation. And a duty do correct it promptly."

According to the suit, filed in Circuit Court on Sept. 24, exterminators came to the apartment on May 15, Aug. 10, Aug., 12 and Aug. 31. Each time, according to the suit, they performed inspections, but did not exterminate, saying they found no bugs.

At the Aug. 10 visit, exterminators suggested that perhaps the Browns had killed all of the bugs.  By then, the Browns had begun sleeping on a sofa to avoid being bitten.

After the Aug. 12 visit, according to the suit, a representative from the property management office said, "The only thing we can tell you to do is go back to sleeping in your bed, and if they're there, they'll come."

According to Whitney, the infestation continued to worsen, and both Mr. and Mrs. Brown, as well as their 3-year-old daughter, had been bitten numerous times.

According to Fred Paraskevoudaki, president of the Maryland Entomological Society, "Once bed bugs get into a place, they multiply pretty quickly."

The bugs are difficult to get rid of not because they are especially hearty,  Paraskevoudaki said, but because of their size.

"They are impossible to control in a way because they're behind the walls in the cracks and crevices, the live in the telephone jack and electric sockets," he said. Fumigation can kill them, but they can also live in places that fumigation can't reach.

The Browns say they continued to get bitten, and so they left the apartment early this month and threw away many of their personal belongings. 

According to Whitney, the couple is suffering from anxiety and stress, still feeling the urge to search for bed bugs even though they have left the apartment, and, he said, Rebecca Brown has sought therapy.

Although people can be allergic to the bites, bed bugs don't necessarily hurt people and they do not spread diseases,  Paraskevoudaki said. "They draw blood from you, but you don't feel them – like a mosquito. You might get a rash," he said, "but you might not get anything at all. You might not even know they bit you."

The Browns are suing for $500,000.

Since their story has been public, Whitney said that he has received calls from other tenants in the building, including one neighbor with an 18-month-old baby. "It's appalling," he said. Whitney is meeting with many of them to determine if they, too, have a case.