Cincinnati, OH Public Health Rules: Bed-Bug Rules (2026)

Section 1601-17 of the Neighborhood Quality of Life Code sits inside Title XVI's general nuisance chapter and applies to bed bugs the same way it applies to rodents, fleas, lice, roaches and weevils: nobody with legal responsibility for a property, defined broadly in § 1601-1(f) to include the freehold owner, a mortgagee or vendee in possession, a receiver, executor, trustee, and any lessee or agent with authority to bring the premises into compliance, may let the premises or any part of it harbor an infestation.

The duty runs to owners, occupants and "persons in control" alike, so a landlord and a tenant can each be charged independently if bed bugs take hold and nobody acts. A violation is a fourth-degree misdemeanor, the same charge level used elsewhere in Chapter 1601 for accumulated-waste and vermin-control cases, and it is enforced alongside the rest of the Neighborhood Quality of Life Code rather than through a separate housing inspection track. 7, which requires an owner or operator to exterminate pests on rental premises, § 1601-17 is the citywide infestation prohibition that reaches any premises in the city, not only licensed rental housing, and it names bed bugs specifically rather than folding them into a generic "pest" category.