Used Furniture, Moving Day and Bed Bugs in Grand Rapids

Why this is the expensive mistake

Every jurisdiction here treats a self-inflicted infestation differently from an inherited one. The Grand Rapids code: where infestation “is caused by failure of an occupant to prevent such infestation in the area occupied, the occupant and owner shall be responsible” (IPMC 309.4 as adopted). Kent County outside the city defaults extermination to the occupant unless the owner’s failure to keep the unit insect-proof caused it (Reg. 601). The state Housing Law lets a court assess the cost “against the occupant or the occupant’s security deposit” where the occupant is the cause (MCL 125.534(5)). A tenant whose unit was clean at move-in and who kept it clean sits in the owner’s column; one who carried in a used sofa does not. The manual even notes the other direction: people “sold infested mattresses or other goods” may have a private right to sue the seller.

The driveway inspection

1. Upholstery: seams, piping, tags, the fold where the back meets the seat, the dust cover underneath and the staples holding it.
2. Box springs and frames: tip them; corners, staples, screw holes, slat joints.
3. Drawers and casegoods: pull every drawer and look at the joints and undersides; the nightstand on the diagram is the usual one.
4. Anything washable goes straight to the dryer before it enters the house. MSU Extension: medium or high heat “for at least 30 minutes,” and “items that can’t be laundered can be put directly into the dryer at medium to high heat for 30 minutes.”
5. A mattress or box spring you keep goes into an encasement before it touches the bedroom. Why →
6. Anything with live bugs, spotting or skins stays outside. Treating one sofa is cheap; treating a house is not. Call before it comes in.

What cannot be inspected

A sofa frame or a particle-board dresser has voids no flashlight reaches. The Michigan sources we rely on do not give a figure for how long a bed bug survives in an empty piece of furniture, so we do not quote one. MSU’s practical rule for items that cannot be laundered is sealed totes “until they can be thoroughly inspected or enough time has passed that bed bugs are dead – at least a year.” A year is the number we work to. For small items, the manual’s cold option: “freezing bed bug infested items at <0°F for two or more hours is effective,” with the caution that 0°F is “colder than most household freezer compartments.” A Michigan January porch can get there; a kitchen freezer usually cannot.

If you already brought it in

Do not throw it back out. Beds and sofas treat, and carrying an infested mattress down a shared stairwell seeds the building. Isolate the piece, encase or bag what you can, and have the room it sat in inspected. Heat treats the piece and the room together in one visit; the manual’s description of ambient heat is that it “effectively treats the whole unit at once.”

Trucks, pods and storage units

A rented truck carried someone else’s furniture before yours. A storage unit shares walls with other people’s. Neither is inspectable, so the defense is on your end: upholstered pieces wrapped before loading, boxes sealed, and the first thing unloaded at the new place inspected before it goes to a bedroom.

Moving out of an infested place

Heat treat before you pack if the lease and the calendar allow; it is the one method that clears belongings and the room in the same day, and it leaves a probe log showing the unit was treated when you left. If you cannot: everything washable through the dryer and into sealed bags; everything else inspected piece by piece in good light; and the first night in the new place on an encased mattress with nothing under the bed. A landlord taking the old unit back is entitled to a unit free of pests “prior to renting” it again (IPMC 309.2); a treatment record is how you show you left it that way.