Hamilton, NJ Public Health Rules: Bed-Bug Rules (2026)

Hamilton addresses bedbugs in one place in its Township Code: § 268-17J, part of the standards that govern licensed hotels, motels, rooming houses, rooming units, and boardinghouses. It requires that every such establishment be kept free and clean of, and not harbor, rats, mice, flies, bedbugs, cockroaches, ants, silverfish, or other insects or vermin. This standard applies to establishments that hold a Township license under § 268-16, which requires an application to the Director of Community and Economic Development, a Housing Division inspection, and a Police Division background check before a license issues for the calendar year.

Under § 268-17A, the Director or Housing Inspector can inspect a licensed establishment at any hour, and if a violation such as a bedbug infestation is not corrected within 10 days of written notice, the Director can call the licensee to a show-cause hearing on at least five days' notice to explain why the license should not be revoked. In an emergency, § 268-17A also allows a verbal order requiring immediate action. Chapter 268 does not extend this specific bedbug standard, or any disclosure or remediation duty, to ordinary residential rental units covered by § 268-18; those units are subject only to the general habitability and pest-extermination duties in § 268-15E, which makes an owner responsible for extermination whenever an infestation is caused by the owner's failure to keep the dwelling insect-proof, or affects two or more units in the same building.