Texas gives you more than most states once you know the sequence, and the whole thing turns on how you send the first letter. Send it certified, registered or tracked and liability can attach on that one notice; send it any other way and you must send a second before the landlord owes you anything. You must also be current on rent for the duty to attach at all. After that the remedies are real: repair-and-deduct at the greater of one month's rent or $500, usable as often as needed within that monthly cap, plus a court order reducing your rent back-dated to the first notice and a civil penalty of a month's rent plus $500. Check your lease first — it is legally required to spell these remedies out in bold or underlined print.
Who pays for treatment
Landlord, unless tenant caused it
Landlord response deadline
7 days presumed reasonable
Disclosure before lease
No
What the law actually says
No bed bug provision. Residential Tenancies, Tex. Prop. Code ch. 92, subch. B (repair or closing of leasehold). § 92.052 — the landlord shall make a diligent effort to repair or remedy a condition that materially affects the physical health or safety of an ordinary tenant, where the tenant has given notice and is not delinquent in rent. § 92.052(b) — no duty where the condition was caused by the tenant, a family member, or a guest or lawful occupant, unless it resulted from normal wear and tear. § 92.053 allocates the burden of proof; § 92.054 covers insured casualty. THE NOTICE RULE THAT DECIDES TEXAS CASES, § 92.056: liability requires the tenant to have given notice under § 92.056(b)(1) and, IF REQUIRED, a subsequent notice under § 92.056(b)(3). The subsequent notice is not required where the first was sent by certified mail return receipt requested, by registered mail, or by other trackable delivery. In practice: send the first letter certified and one notice may be enough; send it by hand or email and you will need a second before liability attaches. Seven days is presumed a reasonable period to repair. § 92.056(g) IS WORTH CHECKING BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE — a lease MUST contain language in underlined or bold print informing the tenant of the remedies available under § 92.056 and § 92.0561. If your lease does not, that is a defect in the landlord's own paperwork. REMEDIES, § 92.056: terminate the lease; deduct the cost of repair without judicial action under § 92.0561; or obtain judicial remedies under § 92.0563. Note § 92.056(f): a tenant who terminates gets a pro rata rent refund and their deposit back, but gives up the repair-and-deduct and the first two judicial remedies. You choose one path. REPAIR AND DEDUCT, § 92.0561: the deduction may not exceed ONE MONTH'S RENT OR $500, WHICHEVER IS GREATER — so a low-rent tenancy gets the $500 floor. § 92.0561(c) is unusually generous on frequency: repairs and deductions may be made AS OFTEN AS NECESSARY provided the total in any one month does not exceed that cap. It is a monthly ceiling, not an annual one, which suits an infestation needing repeat treatment. SUBSIDIZED TENANTS: where rent is subsidized in whole or part by a governmental agency, the one-month limitation means the FAIR MARKET RENT for the dwelling rather than the tenant's own portion — the same protection New Mexico gives. Preconditions: the § 92.052 duty must exist and not have been waived, and at least one of your notices must state that you INTEND to repair, with a reasonable description of the intended work. Say so in the letter. JUDICIAL REMEDIES, § 92.0563 — the strongest part of the chapter. A court may order the landlord to repair; ORDER YOUR RENT REDUCED FROM THE DATE OF THE FIRST REPAIR NOTICE, in proportion to the reduced rental value, until the condition is fixed; award a CIVIL PENALTY OF ONE MONTH'S RENT PLUS $500; award actual damages; and award attorney's fees. The back-dated rent reduction is why the date of your first notice matters so much. CORRECTION TO A COMMON SIMPLIFICATION, INCLUDING AN EARLIER VERSION OF THIS PAGE: § 92.006 does not make the repair duty flatly non-waivable. It governs waiver and expansion of duties, and subsections (e) and (f) permit the § 92.052 duty to be waived in a written lease in defined circumstances — § 92.0561 expressly conditions repair-and-deduct on the duty 'not having been waived in a written lease by the tenant under Subsection (e) or (f) of Section 92.006'. Read your lease and read § 92.006 before assuming the duty is untouchable. THE RISK OF GETTING IT WRONG, § 92.058: if a tenant withholds rent, causes repairs to be performed, or makes deductions in violation of the subchapter, the LANDLORD may recover actual damages from the tenant. Texas gives real remedies and punishes misuse of them. RETALIATION: §§ 92.331–92.332, with a six-month window, and liability of one month's rent plus $500 plus actual damages and attorney's fees. Related: § 92.005 attorney's fees; § 92.008 utility interruption, one month's rent plus $1,000; § 92.0562 landlord affidavit for delay; § 92.061 effect on other rights. Justice court jurisdiction runs to $10,000. Note also Tex. Local Gov't Code § 214.902 preempts municipal rent control, so unlike California there is no strong city-level layer to fall back on.
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What to do, in order
Photograph everything before you touch it
Live insects, shed skins, dark staining along the mattress seam. Timestamps are the evidence.
Notify the landlord in writing
Email or certified letter, never a phone call alone. Written notice is what starts the clock in every state that has one.
Do not throw out furniture yet
Discarded items can't be inspected, and moving them spreads the infestation down the hallway.
Let the deadline above run
Escalating before it expires generally forfeits the remedy.
Escalate to the housing agency, then to court
An independent inspection report is worth more than your own photographs. Rent withholding rules vary sharply — check the section above before you try it.
Read it yourself
Everything above was written by reading the sections named in the citation, not by summarizing another summary. You should not take our word for it — open the statute and check. Look up the section numbers quoted above.
The state's own legislature or code site. Search it for the section numbers quoted above — they are the whole basis for this page.
Last checked against the Texas code: . Statutes change every legislative session — if you are reading this long after that date, open the cited sections yourself before relying on them.
Not legal advice. This is a plain-language reference to publicly available statutes, verified against the Texas code. Liability turns on your lease, your local ordinance and your specific facts. Talk to a tenant attorney or legal aid before withholding rent or filing anything.