Bugs in rented room, argh!

BitterAndTwisted

Your friend doesn't have a scabies-mite infestation as these only live under the skin and aren't visible to the naked eye. It's much more likely that it's either bed-bugs or fleas. Bed-bugs are very difficult to eradicate and your friend needs to be extremely vigilant that she doesn't take them with her wherever she or her things are moved to. They can be brought home with you on your clothing and that is the main reason why outdoor coats are generally hung up inside the front door and not taken upstairs to be put in wardrobes in bedrooms. Different people react differently to bed-bug and flea bites and some don't get a reaction at all but some people get a radical skin-reaction with huge raised weals where they've been bitten. Has the rest of the property been treated at the same time?

I honestly think your friend should try and negotiate as best she can with the landlord to be released from her contract

elfen

Don't forget about washing the bedlinen at 60 to kill any on the bedding

overandout_2

I know how your friend feels.

I have rented a property beforehand and gone through the same thing. My face, body, hands were filled with bite marks - red and quite embarassing. I went to a private doctor and had a blood test. The blood test results indicated a really high reading for ESR (I believe 4 times higher than normal) - test for how much inflammation in my body...

I took all my clothes for a wash - and even my duvet to the laundrette. Threw away my pillows, etc....nothing works...every day I'll wake up to even more bites. Horrible!!

I ended up staying with friends for a week and the biting stops and when I return to my own flat, the biting starts again. At the end, I negotiated with my landlord and I left - and he has hold of my deposit. I couldn't care less and just wanted to leave the place. I was lucky that I didn't have to pay anymore future rent but I didn't get any refund for the previous months.

When I left, I threw away a lot of clothes and the rest, I re-washed them at 60 degrees before moving it to my new flat. I was really careful - didn't really want the bedbugs to follow me. And I had another blood test and everything went back to normal after a few weeks.

Good luck!

Owain_Moneysaver

NHS doctors can deal with fleas and bedbugs.

It's possible to acquire them from the most genteel of people.

BLT_2

Failing all the above perhaps you could provide the name of your friend, after all, we don't want to catch anything from her :-)

anotherginger

Owain_Moneysaver wrote: »

NHS doctors can deal with fleas and bedbugs.

It's possible to acquire them from the most genteel of people.

theres no point in getting treated for them if you don't combat the source, which is within the cracks and crevices around where you sleep. basically they will be in the bed frame, sockets near the bed, behind the skirting board, under loose wallpaper... they easily follow you around (in bags etc), which is why hostels find it so hard to get rid of the damn things.

the the olden days, they didn't just use pigs to warm up beds, they were put in the bed first so that the bed bugs would bite on them in the first instance.

Fire_Fox

saver6 wrote: »

I've advised her of all this now... I think she is simply going to ask the landlord but she has realised now that she is not legally entitled. I'll let you know what happens.

Poor thing tho, she's so stressed out, what with her skin problems, now has nowhere "proper" to live, and probably now not enough cash for a new rental deposit . If I didn't live 30 miles away from her I'd offer her my place to stay indefinitely....

What medical reports does she have of her health problems? I have eczema/ contact dermatitis and I would not want to be in a room that had been fumigated, without written assurances that I could not possibly be affected by the chemicals used. If I were your friend I would write to the landlord by recorded delivery, explaining her skin problems and asking to be released from the tenancy by mutual agreement.

If the room is uninhabitable (ask Environmental Health at the local council) really the landlord should be rehousing your friend for the duration of the chemical treatment. It would be interesting to know whether he has previously had problems with that property being infested.

jayss

If the other housemates rooms have them they will keep coming back.