Bedbugs Are Back? What 106,485 NYC Filings Really Show

Published August 15, 2026. Based on NYC HPD bedbug reports filed from 2021 through July 14, 2026. The annual trend ends with the latest complete filing year, 2025; 2026 is reported separately as year-to-date.

The alarming number is real: New York City property owners filed 106,485 bedbug reports in 2025, the largest annual total in RentReboot's copy of the public record. That is 15% more filings than in 2021.

But it does not mean 106,485 buildings had bedbugs. Most of those annual reports recorded zero infested apartments. Once we separate required filings from filings that actually reported at least one infested dwelling unit, the trend runs the other way: 4,706 in 2021, falling to 2,724 in 2025.

The short version: NYC's bedbug reporting system is getting more complete, while the share of filings that report an infestation is falling. That is encouraging citywide, but 2,641 buildings still reported an infestation in a 2025 filing. In 2026 through July 14, HPD's data contains another 46,370 filings, 692 of which reported an infestation. A renter should check the exact address, unit disclosure, and treatment history rather than infer risk from a citywide headline.

The number that looks like a bedbug wave

Owners of NYC residential buildings with three or more units must submit an annual bedbug report to HPD. The report covers a defined filing period and asks for building-level counts, including dwelling units that had a bedbug infestation and units where eradication measures were used.

That reporting rule creates a crucial distinction:

• An annual filing says an owner submitted the required report.
• A filing reporting infestation says the owner entered at least one infested dwelling unit.
• Neither number is a live count of apartments with bedbugs today.

The first number rose from 92,558 filings in 2021 to 106,485 in 2025. The second fell from 4,706 to 2,724, a 42% decline. In 2025, just under 2.6% of annual filings in our data reported one or more infested units, compared with 5.1% in 2021.

This is why “bedbugs are back” is the wrong conclusion from filing volume alone. A higher filing total can reflect compliance, data coverage, duplicate filings, or the timing of submissions. It is not evidence that infestations doubled.

The more defensible reading is narrower: more owners are represented in the annual dataset, while fewer submitted reports record an infestation. That does not prove the true incidence of bedbugs fell by exactly 42%. Owner reports are not a random survey, reporting can be incomplete, and one filing may cover conditions from an earlier reporting period. It does show why the two columns must not be conflated.

What the 2026 data shows so far

HPD's data contains 46,370 filings dated January 1 through July 14, 2026. Of those, 692 reported at least one infested dwelling unit, representing 692 distinct building IDs. That is 1.49% of filings submitted during the period.

For the same January 1–July 14 window in 2025, the dataset contains 32,937 filings, including 521 that reported an infestation, or 1.58%. Filing volume is 41% higher in the 2026 window and infestation-reporting filings are 33% higher, but the share reporting an infestation is slightly lower.

This is filing activity, not a count of infestations that began in 2026. Of the 46,370 filings dated in 2026, 46,368 cover the annual reporting period from November 1, 2024 through October 31, 2025; two have blank reporting-period dates. Submission timing can shift between years, so the year-to-date comparison should not be read as a 33% increase in current bedbug incidence.

The 692 infestation-reporting filings break down as 240 in Brooklyn, 200 in Manhattan, 143 in Queens, 102 in the Bronx, and seven in Staten Island. Those are unadjusted counts and not borough risk rates.

Where 2025 filings reported infestations

In 2025, 2,724 filings reported at least one infested dwelling unit. Those filings represented 2,641 distinct building IDs because a small number of buildings filed more than once.

Brooklyn and Manhattan were close: 870 Brooklyn buildings and 841 Manhattan buildings reported an infestation. Queens followed with 471, the Bronx with 433, and Staten Island with 26.

Those are counts, not borough risk rates. Brooklyn has far more annual filings than Staten Island, and buildings differ greatly in size. A borough with more buildings and apartments will naturally produce more reports. We do not divide by population or dwelling units here because the unit-count field contains anomalies large enough to make a citywide rate unreliable.

The borough chart is useful for scale, not for choosing a neighborhood. Bedbugs travel in furniture, luggage, and between apartments. A recent, well-documented infestation in a responsive building can be more informative than an apparently clear record in a building that did not file.

What the public record can and cannot tell a renter

HPD's annual records are building-level. They can tell you whether an owner filed, the reporting period, and the counts the owner submitted. They do not publicly identify the exact apartment in the annual dataset.

NYC uses a separate disclosure for a new tenant. The DBB-N form published by New York State Homes and Community Renewal asks the owner or managing agent to disclose the apartment and building's bedbug infestation history for the previous year. That form is the unit-specific document to request before signing.

Use the two records together:

1. Search the exact address in HPD Online.
2. Open the building's bedbug reports, complaints, and violations.
3. Note the latest annual reporting period and whether any units were reported infested or re-infested.
4. Ask for the completed DBB-N disclosure with the lease draft.
5. If either record shows a recent issue, ask which floor was affected, when treatment occurred, whether adjacent units were inspected, and whether follow-up found activity.

A complaint, violation, and owner filing are different records. A complaint means someone reported a condition. HPD explains that a violation can follow when an inspector finds bedbugs. An owner filing is the owner's annual report. Read each status and date rather than collapsing them into a single building score.

Our detailed bedbug-history guide walks through the address search and disclosure form step by step.

A recent report is a question, not an automatic rejection

One treated infestation does not tell you how a building responded. The useful follow-up is operational:

• Was the affected apartment professionally inspected and treated?
• Were apartments above, below, and beside it checked?
• Did the same unit or floor report re-infestation?
• Does management have dates and records, or only a vague assurance?
• Does the DBB-N disclosure agree with the building report?

That distinction matters because a clean-looking annual record is not a guarantee either. The report covers a past period, tenants may not report every condition, and bedbugs can arrive after filing. During a viewing, look around baseboards, casings, cracks, and built-in furniture, but do not treat a five-minute visual check as a professional inspection.

The strongest signal is consistency: the public history, required disclosure, management's written answer, and physical tour tell one coherent story. Missing filings, contradictory answers, pressure to waive questions, or evidence of current activity are reasons to pause.

How we measured this

RentReboot analyzed 620,975 rows in its read-only copy of NYC's Bedbug Reporting dataset on August 15, 2026. The latest filing_date in that snapshot is July 14, 2026. We grouped records by the calendar year of filing_date and counted a filing as reporting infestation when infested_dwelling_unit_count was greater than zero. Distinct-building figures use the dataset's building_id.

We focus the full-year trend on 2021–2025 because 2025 is the latest complete filing year in the snapshot and earlier rollout years include especially uneven filing volume. We show 2026 separately through July 14 and compare it with the same calendar window in 2025. We do not use the sum of infested dwelling units: that field contains implausible outliers in the source copy. Counts of filings and distinct building IDs are more stable.

Limits matter. Annual reports are owner-submitted, filing dates and reporting periods are not identical, duplicate filings occur, and the dataset does not measure unreported infestations. The analysis describes the public filing record, not the true prevalence of bedbugs in every NYC apartment.

The SQL used for the published figures ships with this article in scripts/analysis/nyc-bedbug-filings-2026/.

Questions renters ask

Did 106,485 NYC buildings have bedbugs in 2025? No. That is the number of annual filings in our dataset. Only 2,724 of those filings reported at least one infested dwelling unit, representing 2,641 distinct building IDs.

Are bedbugs declining in NYC? The owner-filed record shows fewer filings reporting infestation from 2021 through 2025. It does not capture unreported cases and cannot establish the city's true infestation rate on its own.

Why is 2026 not another bar in the annual chart? The 2026 data stops on July 14, so it is not comparable with five complete calendar years. We show it separately against the same January 1–July 14 window in 2025.

Can I see which apartment had bedbugs? The public annual report is aggregated at building level. A new tenant should request the DBB-N disclosure, which covers the apartment and affected building floors for the prior year.

Should I reject any building with a report? Not automatically. Check recency, treatment, adjacent-unit inspection, re-infestation, and whether the disclosure matches the public history.

👉 Set up RentReboot alerts to find matching NYC apartments, then run the address-level bedbug check before signing.

Sources

• NYC HPD - Bedbugs
• NYC311 - Bed Bug Annual Report
• NYC HPD - HPD Online
• New York State HCR - DBB-N Bedbug Disclosure Form
• NYC Health - Bedbugs Information for Tenants and Building Owners