Pest Control in a BC Strata: Bed Bugs, Rodents and Who Pays

Bed bugs in a third-floor suite. Rats in the parkade. Wasps behind the soffit. Pest problems in a strata are rarely confined to one strata lot, and the first argument is almost always about money. Here is how the Strata Property Act frames the question — and where the answer turns on your own registered bylaws instead.

Start with the boundary, not the invoice

Responsibility for pest control follows responsibility for the thing the pests are living in. Under section 68 of the Strata Property Act, unless the strata plan shows otherwise, a strata lot's boundary sits midway through the structural portion of the dividing wall, floor or ceiling. Wall cavities, the building envelope, crawl spaces, garbage rooms, landscaping and parkades are common property, even when only one owner uses the area next to them.

The strata corporation must repair and maintain common property under section 72. So rodent exclusion work on the envelope, baiting in the parkade, or treating a wasp nest in a common wall is corporation work, paid as a common expense, in the same way the corporation handles any other building system. Treating the inside of a single strata lot is a different question, and that is where bylaws matter.

What your bylaws can — and can't — do

Section 119 lets bylaws provide for the control, management, maintenance, use and enjoyment of strata lots, common property and common assets. Many strata corporations have adopted pest bylaws that require occupants to report an infestation promptly, to prepare a unit for treatment, and to permit the strata's contractor access. Whether yours does is a question about your registered bylaws, not about the Act — check the filed set, not the welcome package.

Two Standard Bylaws do useful work even if your strata has adopted no pest bylaw at all:

• Bylaw 3 prohibits using a strata lot, the common property or common assets in a way that causes a nuisance or hazard to another person, or that unreasonably interferes with another person's use and enjoyment.
• Bylaw 7 requires an owner, tenant or occupant to allow a person authorized by the strata corporation to enter the strata lot in an emergency without notice, and at a reasonable time on 48 hours' written notice to inspect, repair or maintain common property or portions of a strata lot that are the strata's responsibility.

Access refusals are common with bed bugs, and they are often about embarrassment, disability or language rather than defiance. Where an occupant needs support to prepare a unit, treat it the way you would any other accommodation question — see our note on accessibility and the duty to accommodate.

Who pays? Direct answers

Is bed bug treatment a common expense?

It depends on what is being treated. Work on common property is a common expense. Treatment inside a strata lot is the owner's cost unless the strata's bylaws make it a corporation expense, or the infestation is part of a building-wide problem the corporation is managing as a single project. Many stratas treat adjoining units together on professional advice and absorb the cost, because partial treatment fails.

Can the strata charge the cost back to the owner it started with?

Only on a defined path. Section 133 lets the strata do what is reasonably necessary to remedy a contravention of its bylaws or rules, including doing work on a strata lot, and require the reasonable costs to be paid by the person who may be fined. That requires an actual bylaw contravention — not merely that the pests appeared in that unit first.

Do we have to follow a process before charging it?

Yes. Section 135 requires all of: a complaint, written particulars given to the owner or tenant, a reasonable opportunity to answer including a hearing if requested, and written notice of the decision as soon as feasible. If the person is a tenant, notice of the complaint also goes to the landlord and owner. A fine or chargeback imposed without these steps is void and cannot be fixed after the fact.

What about a rented unit? Under section 131, the strata may collect a fine or remediation cost from the tenant, the landlord and the owner — but not more than the total amount once.

Insurance, urgency and recordkeeping

Don't assume the strata policy responds. The corporation must insure common property, common assets and the buildings shown on the strata plan on a full-replacement-value basis under section 149, but property insurance covers the perils named in the policy, and infestation is generally not one of them. Ask your broker before budgeting on the assumption of a claim.

Urgent pest work usually does not need a general meeting. The Act permits spending without prior approval from the operating fund up to the limit in the bylaws, and from either fund where there are reasonable grounds to believe an immediate expenditure is necessary to ensure safety or prevent significant loss or damage (see the Province's CRF guidance).

Keep the paper. Section 35 requires the strata to retain written contracts, correspondence and books of account, and the Regulation sets different retention periods for each — contracts for at least six years after they end, correspondence for at least two. Treatment reports, access notices and s.135 letters are what a Civil Resolution Tribunal file turns on two years later. Scheduled exclusion inspections belong in your maintenance planning and work orders cycle alongside fire and life-safety intervals. If you need to understand what prior councils already agreed about pest responsibility, SearchStrata can analyse years of minutes and bylaw amendments for the relevant decisions. And because the management company can change while the problem doesn't, ManageStrata keeps those documents, minutes, votes and books with the corporation rather than with whoever is administering it this year.

This article is general information about BC strata law, not legal advice; verify against the current Strata Property Act and Regulation or consult a BC strata lawyer.