Guide · leaving, and not taking them with you
You cannot outrun them. They pack.
Moving is the most expensive mistake in this whole subject. People spend months and thousands getting a flat treated, then carry a handful of survivors into the new place in a laundry basket and start again from zero — this time with a landlord who has every reason to say it was them.
The one rule that mattersNothing leaves the old place untreated. Not a box, not a bag, not a mattress, not the suitcase you are using to carry everything else. Bed bugs do not travel on their own — every single infestation moves because a person carried it.
Get this wrong and you also hand your new landlord an argument that you introduced it, which in Washington strips your remedies entirely and in Alabama reaches the negligent act of anyone in your household.
First: are you leaving because of them?
If so, do not simply hand back the keys. Most states give a statutory route out that protects your deposit and ends your rent liability — and walking away without using it can leave you owing the balance of the term.
There is usually a termination right, and it has conditionsThirty-five of the fifty-one jurisdictions covered here set out a termination route in the statute, typically written notice, a cure period, then the right to end the tenancy with prepaid rent and deposit returned. The conditions differ sharply: Utah’s “rent abatement” remedy actually means the lease terminates and you must vacate within ten days; Oregon lets you go on 14 days rather than 30 if substantially the same problem recurs within six months of an earlier notice; Hawaii preserves an early-termination right if you stayed on in reliance on a promise to fix it. Read your state page before you give notice, and use the letter generator so the notice is the one your statute expects.
Constructive eviction is not a shortcutWhere conditions make a home genuinely unliveable, some states let you treat yourself as evicted and leave without further rent liability — New Jersey recognises it through Reste Realty v. Cooper. But it is a doctrine you argue afterwards, usually in a suit brought against you, not a box you tick on the way out. Use the statutory route if your state has one.
Can they take it out of your deposit?
This is the fight that follows most bed bug tenancies, and it turns on the same question as everything else: who caused it.
Where the landlord owed the duty, the answer should be noA deduction has to be for damage or for something the tenant was responsible for. If your state puts pest control on the landlord — and in a multi-unit building most do — then treatment is their maintenance cost, not your damage. Nevada goes furthest and bars charging a tenant fees for performing the landlord’s own duty at all.
Where the statute splits the cost, timing decides itDelaware is the clearest example and worth knowing before you move ANYWHERE: report within 60 days of moving in, or within 30 days of an infestation being found in an adjoining unit, and the landlord bears all costs. Miss both windows and you share the cost of treating your own unit. A tenant who says nothing for three months has made a decision without realising it.
Photograph the unit on the way outSame reasoning as the move-in inventory. In Hawaii, a landlord who failed to complete the required signed move-in inventory faces a presumption that conditions were the same when you arrived. Your own dated photographs at handover are the cheapest insurance available against a deduction you cannot later disprove. Log them in the record keeper.
The move itself
This protocol comes from public health departments and university extension services, not from a moving company. Follow the order — it is designed so clean things never touch dirty ones again.
Inspect the new place before you sign, not after
Take a torch. Check mattress seams, the box spring, behind the headboard, and where carpet meets skirting. Ask directly whether any unit in the building has had bed bugs in the past year — New York gives you that history by statute, and New York City has a specific disclosure form for it. If you see anything, raise it before you sign, not after you move in.
Launder everything, then bag it and label it CLEAN
Wash and dry all fabric on the hottest setting the item allows; if it is already clean, twenty minutes in a hot dryer is enough. It is the dryer heat that kills, not the wash. Seal each load into CLEAR plastic bags and label them clean. Clear bags matter — you need to see what is inside without opening it.
Keep clean and unsorted items physically apart
Sort by type and never let a sealed clean bag sit against an untreated one. This is the step people skip and it undoes everything before it.
Use new boxes
Second-hand boxes are a known vector, and the corners and seams are exactly where bed bugs sit. If you must reuse, inspect every seam with a torch first.
Deal with what cannot go in a dryer
Electronics, books, appliances. Options are a heat unit designed for the purpose, sealed plastic bins treated with pest strips strictly per the label, or asking a professional. Do not improvise with foggers — they push bugs deeper and are a fire risk near pilot lights.
Encase the mattress on moving day, not before
Buy an encasement for every mattress and box spring and fit it the day you move. It traps anything already inside and stops anything new getting in, and it survives the journey.
Ask the movers two questions
Whether they check their vehicles for bed bugs and how often, and whether their furniture blankets are cleaned between jobs. If you are renting a van, inspect it yourself with a torch before you load. A clean move into a contaminated truck is not a clean move.
Unpack outside, on a hard surface
Empty boxes outdoors at the new place and discard them there. Unpack onto a hard floor rather than carpet, and inspect as you go, so anything that travelled has nowhere to disappear into.
Sources: New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Simple Ways to Avoid Bed Bugs During Moving and Storage → · Michigan Department of Community Health, How to Move and Leave Bed Bugs Behind, summarised by Michigan State University Extension → · Purdue University Cooperative Extension, E-261 →
Storage is where this goes wrong quietly
Bed bugs can survive in storage for many monthsThey do not need to feed often, and a sealed storage unit is a stable, undisturbed place to wait. Putting untreated belongings into storage does not pause the problem — it preserves it, and hands it back to you months later when you have forgotten why.
If you must store: treat first, use sealable plastic containers rather than cardboard, seal any tear with tape, ask the facility how often they inspect, and look around the unit yourself with a torch before you load. Check everything again on the way out, and launder washable items immediately.
What you throw away, and how
Do not just put it on the kerbPurdue’s extension guidance is specific: items for disposal should be wrapped in plastic, sealed with tape, and marked “Do Not Salvage — Bed Bugs”. Better still, damage the item so it cannot be reused. A discarded mattress taken home by a neighbour is how a single unit becomes a building.
And discard less than you think. Disposal spreads the problem, costs you money, destroys evidence you may need for a claim, and is rarely necessary — most furniture can be treated. Photograph anything you do throw out, with a receipt for the replacement.
Tell the landlord you are leaving an infestation behindNot out of charity. A unit re-let untreated spreads the problem back through the building, and in several states letting a unit the landlord knows is infested is itself unlawful — California bars showing or renting one, Delaware requires inspection before every letting. Putting it in writing also creates a dated record that the infestation existed and was theirs to deal with, which is exactly what you want if a deposit deduction lands later.