Consumer Law, Warranties college refund due to horrid bedbug conditions

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buggedparent

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My daughter began school 9/1/09 at a college in NYC. By day 14 we realized that she was getting bitten by bugs at night. She reported the incident. Her roomate found a live bug in her bed so an exterminator was called. He confirmed evidence of bedbugs. The school told my daughter and her roommate to move loose contents to friends' rooms and to wash all clothing in hot water and to stay out of the room while treatment was being done. We decided, after much agonizing, to withdraw her from the school.

Our decision was a tough one since she enjoyed the school and it was too late to apply to other schools locally. However, we felt there was no choice. When we consulted a highly rated bedbug exterminator he confirmed that the school's response was inadequate and that the problem would likely continue.

In scouring the internet for info on bedbugs we became horrified by the incorrect protocol the school had used in treatment. Specifically,

__ no other rooms were inspected nor students asked.

__Removing contents was exactly the wrong thing to do since this would obviously spread the problem around.

__no other alternative room was available, my daughter would have been required to stay in the room which had been treated with chemicals.

__She would also surely have been bitten more since the exterminator told us that there would likely be increased bug activity following treatment. She is very allergic to bug bites so this was unacceptable.

__The treatment required 3 consecutive treatments performed every two weeks to even begin to see whether the problem had abated.

__Our exterminator confirmed that treating only one room in a dorm situation insured that the problem would NOT be eradicated.

The bedbug situation has become out of hand in NYC. We were petrified of bringing anything home! We threw out most of her contents. We bought a machine to heat up other contents in order to kill any bugs/eggs, and we hired the best exterminator we could find to examine my daughters room at home to make sure we brought nothing home. Obviously, this has been a great expense to our family.

The problem is that the school informed us that the policy is a 40% tuition reimbursement if withdrawal is in the third week of school. We think the living conditions of the bedbugs (oh and cockroaches too!) should warrant an exception to the standard policy. Believe it or not the dorms are so overcrowded with many students being tripled in double rooms, there was a replacement for my daughter's spot within days.

We have written emails and left numerous phone messages. We have been unable to get a response. Today we received a check in the mail amounting to a bit over $2,000. No note or explanation was included. This doesn't even come close to 40% so we are obviously very frustrated.

My question- would I have any legal recourse to recoup the full tuition. I have looked for similar situations online but haven't found one.

Any advice would be appreciated!
 
You acted too quickly. You did not give their "protocol" a chance to succeed or fail. You use a lot of fear words like "petrified" and "horrified." They are bedbugs not anacondas. I will grant you that I'm not fond of the idea of being bitten by them in my sleep, but they won't kill you. You should have given their treatment an opportunity to see if it worked or not. If you had done that and it did not work after a time or two you would have a real case for withdrawing. The way you did it, you jumped the gun and did not give them the chance to rectify the situation.

You should get the full 40% and I'm not why they have not followed through. Keep after them.
 
I realize I used a lot of fear words and they don't have a place in the law. But honestly, you will know where I'm coming from when you take a look at Bedbugger.com. This bed bug problem is an absolute scourge. I still have an obsessive fear that my daughter could have brought them home with her, despite having had my house inspected and deemed bedbug free. The problem is very hard to detect at an early stage as the bugs hide and only 40% of people react to bites and realize they are getting bit.

This problem needs a global solution. Individuals are going broke and losing their sanity trying to get rid of this problem in private homes. Multi family dwellings pose a great challenge and even the most luxe buildings in NYC are affected. Exterminators don't have enough hours in the day to answer their calls. The hotel industry is being hit so greatly it will definitely affect the travel industry.

My problem with the college is that they don't have an official protocol. Obviously, with this problem becoming so widespread, every school is vulnerable. I think there need to be laws in place requiring each university to post their protocol and to follow it by the letter of the law. It is true I "chose" to remove my daughter, but the school's response to the problem was inadequate and negligent. I was unwilling to force my daughter to sleep in the same room to continue to be bit.

So now I am left with a $2,000 check out of $13,000 tuition. While it seems hardly fair to lose $11,000 in nearly as many days, I can live with our decision even if we don't get back another penny.
 
40% reimbursement?

Finally spoke to someone re: 40% reimbursement. I didn't understand why I was only getting $2,000 back out of $13,000. What I was told was that I get only 40% back on the charges. When I said, "Well, I was charged 13, how is that 40%? She said I was responsible for the total tuition of $21,900. I don't understand how this is legal since I was never responsible for that total because my daughter had scholarship grants which made our bill 13,000.
In fact, she chose that school because of the substantial grant.

Does this seem legal?
 
Her grants most-likely will not pay because she dropped out. I think you really reacted too rashly by pulling her out so fast. If you had waited to see if the treatments worked it would have been better. If they didn't work you would have had leverage. As it is you just quit the school.
 
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