Bed bug photos from a tenant: in Colorado the photo starts a 96-hour clock, not an argument

A tenant sends a photo through the resident portal: a small brown bug on a white sheet, and a message saying there are more. You can’t tell from the picture whether it is a bed bug, whether it was taken in your unit, or whether it was taken this week. Most of the photos we write about are worth checking before you act on them. This one mostly isn’t, and in Colorado the law is why.

This piece covers two Mountain West states that have a section of landlord-tenant law just for bed bugs, Colorado and Arizona, and where photo files still matter once an inspector is involved. It is not legal advice.

Colorado: the notice starts the clock

Colorado’s bed bug law (HB19-1328, passed in 2019, now C.R.S. 38-12-1001 to 1007) puts the steps in order:

• The tenant gives notice. A tenant who knows or reasonably suspects bed bugs must promptly tell the landlord in writing or electronically. If the lease names an email address, phone number or portal, electronic notice goes there, and the tenant keeps proof it was delivered (38-12-1002(1)).
• The landlord gets an inspection within 96 hours. “Not more than ninety-six hours after receiving notice”, the landlord must have the unit inspected by a qualified inspector (38-12-1002(2)). That window includes the 48 hours’ written entry notice the law also requires, unless the tenant waives it (38-12-1004(1)).
• Results in writing within two business days. If bed bugs are found, treatment starts within five business days of the inspection, and contiguous units the same landlord manages are inspected “as promptly as is reasonably practical” (38-12-1002(3), 38-12-1003).
• The landlord pays for inspection and treatment, except where the part says otherwise (38-12-1003(4)). The tenant pays to prepare the unit, and a tenant who knowingly and unreasonably fails to cooperate is liable for treatment that results (38-12-1004(4)).
• A landlord who doesn’t comply is liable for the tenant’s actual damages (38-12-1006).

Note what triggers the clock: notice of a reasonable suspicion. The statute does not ask the tenant to prove anything, with a photo or otherwise. Spending the 96 hours deciding whether a picture is genuine uses up the time you have to arrange the inspection, and the inspection answers the question better than any photo can.

Why a bug photo proves so little either way

• It isn’t an identification. A phone photo of a small insect is often too blurred or too small to identify, and other bugs get mistaken for bed bugs. That is a job for the inspector the law already requires.
• It doesn’t show where. A bug on a sheet could be in any bedroom.
• It is the easiest kind of photo to borrow. One bed bug looks like every other one, and close-ups are all over the internet. AI image tools can make one too. We don’t know how often anyone sends a borrowed or generated bug photo, and we’re not suggesting tenants do.

If you do run the tenant’s photo through our checker, read the result for what it is. A file that says it was made or edited with AI, through Content Credentials or a tool’s own marker, comes back “AI Generated” or “AI Edited”. That is a fact about the file, worth noting, and still not a reason to skip an inspection the law requires. A photo sent by text or messaging app usually comes back “Can’t Verify”, because those apps strip the camera record as they send. That is normal for an honest photo and means nothing about the bugs.

Arizona: notice and a few rules, no deadline in the section

Arizona’s section, A.R.S. 33-1319, is shorter:

• The landlord gives bed bug educational materials to existing and new tenants, and may not lease a unit the landlord knows has a current infestation.
• The tenant may not knowingly move infested belongings in, and a tenant who knows of bed bugs must notify the landlord in writing or electronically.
• It does not apply to single-family residences, it doesn’t limit the rest of the landlord-tenant act, and apart from what it specifically provides, it creates no cause of action for bed bug damages either way.

The section sets no inspection deadline. The landlord’s general duties under the rest of Arizona’s act still apply; read those with your own counsel. The practical point is the same as in Colorado: the tenant’s photo is notice, and an inspection decides.

Where the photo files do matter

Once a bed bug report comes in, the records worth checking and keeping are the ones that come after the tenant’s picture:

• The inspector’s report and photos. This is the record the statute builds on. File it with the date of the tenant’s notice so the 96 hours can be shown later.
• Treatment invoices across several units. When contiguous units are inspected and treated, the bill is often per unit. If the vendor sends photos, run each invoice’s batch through the checker together. Any two exact copies are marked “Identical file” whatever they are named, and a camera original shows its capture time to set against the visit date. We have written before that the same photo billed twice is the invoice problem to expect first. That is a question to ask, not an accusation.
• A cost claim against a tenant who didn’t cooperate. Under 38-12-1004(4) that means showing the tenant knowingly and unreasonably failed to follow reasonable measures, and that treatment cost followed from it. Photos of an unprepared unit on the scheduled date help most as originals with the camera’s own clock intact, alongside the inspector’s written instructions and your entry notice.
• The date a unit was last found clear. In Colorado a prospective tenant can ask whether, to your knowledge, the unit had bed bugs in the last eight months, and when it was last inspected and found free of them (38-12-1005). That answer comes from the inspector’s dated report, so keep it where you can find it.

A routine

1. Treat any bed bug message as notice. Log when it arrived, whatever the photo shows.
2. Send entry notice and book the inspector the same day. In Colorado, the 96 hours include the 48-hour entry notice unless the tenant waives it.
3. Keep the inspector’s report, dated, with the tenant’s notice. Send the tenant the result in writing within two business days.
4. Ask treatment vendors for original photo files (email attachment or upload, not screenshots or a messaging app), and check each invoice’s batch in one go before you pay.
5. Save the report with the invoice. It is dated and lists each file’s SHA-256, so anyone can later confirm the file you produce is the one you checked.

The limits, stated plainly

• Our checker reads the record inside a file. It cannot tell you what insect is in a photo, where it was taken, or whether a unit has bed bugs. Only an inspection can.
• “Camera Original” means a camera or phone recorded the file and the record is intact. It is not proof of what the photo shows. Camera clocks can be wrong, and camera data can be edited by someone who means to.
• No confidence score is given, and the checker does not judge a picture by looking at it. A file with no record is not a fake, and a file with no AI marker is not proven real.
• We only read Colorado’s and Arizona’s sections. Other states, and local health and housing codes, may cover bed bugs in their own ways. Check yours.
• Statute text was read in October 2026 from the Arizona Legislature and the official Colorado Revised Statutes 2026. Check the current text before relying on it. This is not legal advice.

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