A family in Bakersfield, California, rented a home. Within days after they moved in, the entire family was suffering from scabies. The home was infested with bugs. The family is intending to sue the landlord. I’m not sure renters insurance would have helped this situation.
Moving is always a difficult experience. It brings up many emotions. People are often sad to be leaving their current residence, town, or state. Packing up items, that have been sitting in closets for years, can make people feel nostalgic. Moving is also physically exhausting. It takes effort to pack things up, to move the boxes and furniture out of the house, and to reverse the entire process in the new home.
Usually, moving doesn’t involve a situation where a family breaks out in scabies. A family of seven in Bakersfield, California, had that happen. The home they rented, and moved into, was infested with bedbugs, ticks, and fleas. Scabies is a contagious skin disease that is caused by tiny mites that burrow into the skin. A rash results because humans are allergic to the mites.
The parents sent their children to their grandmother’s house. Everyone there caught the scabies infection. Visitors to the home also caught it, and one visitor is afraid to leave the infested home because he does not want to bring scabies to his family. The family who rented the home has missed a week of work, and will very likely have to miss more work as they heal.
The son of the landlord claims that when they were cleaning the home they did not see any bedbugs. He says he doesn’t know how the bugs got there.
The family has been paying for the extermination of the bugs. They don’t have the money to pay the rent. The landlord lowered the rent so the family would have an easier time paying him. The family wants compensation for the contaminated property that they had to throw away. The landlord is refusing to pay for that.
Would renters insurance have helped in this situation? Most of the time, people cannot get renters insurance until they have officially signed a lease. It takes a little bit of time between when a person is approved for an insurance policy, of any kind, and when the coverage will begin.
I have no idea if this family had renters insurance, or if they did not, but it seems to me that the infestation likely affected them, and their belongings, immediately after moving in. This could, potentially, cause an insurance company to deny their claims for the property damages caused by the bug infestation. Renters insurance covers a person’s personal property from damage caused by sixteen different types of perils. Insect infestation is not one of those perils.
Image by Micah MacAllen on Flickr