Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite – unless your building has an infestation.
No New Yorker wants to think about bed bugs—hell, New Yorkers don’t even dare to say their name. And if your skin isn’t itching yet, a new third-quarter study from free rental portal Rent Betta has come out to show the city’s worst bedbug-infested buildings, or at least those known to have supposedly creepy-crawler breeding grounds between the months of July and September.
Among the report’s findings, the top three criminal suspects in that time span are all in Brooklyn.
To earn the title of one of the worst infested buildings, Rent Betta determined if a property had 10 or more units – all of which reported a bed bug infestation to the New York City Bureau of Housing Preservation and Development.
Most buildings take immediate action to treat all units and do not report reinfestation. By law, a building must hire an exterminator at no cost to the tenant.
But there are also other landlords who ignore the situation or let the problem drag on, their residents accuse.
“I had bed bugs in an apartment in Queens and it took two months to fumigate the apartment to get rid of them,” Ze Xu, who now lives on the Upper West Side, told The Post. “I’m glad there’s an easy way to tell if a building has had bed bugs.”
As of the third quarter of 2022, there were 13 buildings in the city with every unit reporting bed bugs.
A look at the finds.Rent Betta / NY Post Association
Of the 13, the building that earned the title of the city’s most infested building goes to 944 42nd St. in Brooklyn’s Borough Park neighborhood, where all 42 of their units reported bed bugs. Additionally, none of the building’s units were reported as treated, with the study showing 100 percent infestation for that building.
There are currently no active listings there and a two bedroom condo was last listed for $2,100 per month in July.
Next up is a 37 unit rental building in East Flatbush on Clarkson Ave. Meanwhile, all 33 units of No. 3 on the list, 8609 Bay 16th St. in Brooklyn, have been treated for bed bugs, the report adds.
The Post has reached out to all 13 building units for comment.
