To think the HA should deal with this?

[PearlyShrink]

Im unsure so feel free to tell me aibu.
We moved into a new HA house 2 months ago, the house was unlike anything you could imagine and had been treated terribly by the previous tenants, absolutely filthy! Every room needed floors ripped up, stripped and redecorated, it took over a week just to bleach all the surfaces and a month to rid the smell.

We are now ready to start the kitchen and removed a piece of wallpaper to find lots of tiny little black bugs, think 1mm in size actually hard to spot no amount of googling brings up anything similar, yet none of them are moving. Removed more paper on other walls, same again. So started investigating they are everywhere! in the inside seals of the kitchen doors, millions of them, on the lightbulb outside of cupboards near the joins (im crawling just thinking about this!) worryingly theres also the odd one on surfaces that are regularly cleaned so must be recent, again not moving. Thankfully all other rooms have been gutted and its only the kitchen affected.

Not knowing what we are dealing with just called the HA and explained and they wont do anything, says its our problem and to buy some bug spray, they wont send anyone out can they do this?? and where do we even start?

any advice would be great

Rentokil will give you a free quote - -that might be a first start, so yu can find out what it is?

Rentokil should be able to help

HA seem to give up caring after your first month.

Post a picture?

I'll try post a pic off behind the door seals, apologies to anyone eating! Shudder!

You could call Shelter for advice. In some infestation cases, a public landlord should take responsibility for dealing with the issue. They have to provide housing that is in a tolerable living standard. If the infestation is pre-existing and makes the kitchen uninhabitable then the HA may have to act, but Shelter will be able to advise you.

From Shelter's own advice page about this, there is something called hide beetles which can be found in kitchens and can bore into walls. There isn't a photo of them. However it says the largest ones are 1cm so they're obviously tiny like the ones you have. It doesn't mention the lack of movement.

If none are moving, maybe some sort of treatment has been carried out before you moved in and these are just dead bodies left behind. Very gross but hopefully nothing breeding and once you clean them out you will be OK.

A bit shitty that this was not sorted before you moved in, along with the other cleaning. I had always assumed HA or council housing would meet set standards for new tenants

that's what I thought too iggy like maybe the house had been fumigated or something but doesn't explain why there is some in areas ive already cleaned and clean regularly, cupboard doors back of work tops etc im totally confused by it, will definitely call for advice as I don't want to spend money redecorating to find them again if they need treated first

That's horrid. Perhaps email your local garden centre/biology department at local school?

Did you do a mutual exchange with the previous tenant? Because if you did then you'll find the HA won't do a thing. I've been in that position - the previous tenants had been telling me how they were cleaning it up and going to the dump over the 2 months before we exchanged. I arrived on moving day with all my stuff having stayed up all night leaving a spotless property. They hadn't even packed!
So over the next 2 weeks as they/me packed their stuff up the extent of hideousness was revealed. Reality Show standard without exaggeration. They had even left a caged hawk outside for me to feed defrosted baby chicks through the wire. It took me nearly 2 years to get that place sorted to a reasonable state. Then I had to move for different reasons.

I say this on most threads where people are taking about pests, but never call Rentokill. They overcharge because they are the most famous.

Call your local council, most have an in-house pest control service.

iamrecharging - yes it was a mutual exchange, I knew the house would take ALOT of work but similar story to yours, the previous tenants didn't clear their all things out we waited a month for uplift of that and more and more problems were uncovered the longer we were here, like you we left our old house immaculate. We didn't expect an infestation though! I've spoken to someone else at the HA and they said I would need to call environmental health so I suppose that's the next port of call, I still feel the HA should be doing something themselves :(