In ruling in favor of the plaintiffs, the trial court found, among other
things, that (1) the plaintiffs entered into a one-year residential lease with the
defendant commencing July 1, 2021; (2) the plaintiffs paid the defendant
$2,700, consisting of $1,350 for the July rent plus a security deposit of $1,350;
(3) while they were moving into the apartment, the plaintiffs discovered what
they believed was a live bed bug, notified the defendant of their discovery, and
delayed their occupancy; (4) the defendant promptly took action to address the
matter, including identifying an apartment above the plaintiffs’ apartment as
the source of the problem, and eventually remediating the issue under the
supervision of the City of Manchester; (5) the defendant failed to provide the
plaintiffs with documentation that a professional exterminator had performed
the remediation work; (6) the defendant offered to refund the plaintiffs one
week of their July 2021 rent, and on July 20, 2021, offered to let them out of
the lease altogether; (7) the plaintiffs accepted the defendant’s offer to
terminate the lease on July 30, 2021; (8) the City of Manchester did not deem
the bedbug issue to be finally resolved until December 2021; and (9) the
defendant refused to return the security deposit, claiming that the plaintiffs
provided insufficient notice to allow it to re-let the apartment by August 1,
2021. On these facts, the trial court awarded the plaintiffs judgment of
$1,661.78, consisting of their security deposit, see RSA 540-A:7, I (2021), plus
one week’s rent. On appeal, the defendant argues that the trial court erred by
allowing certain exhibits into evidence, crediting the plaintiffs’ evidence and
testimony that their apartment had a bedbug issue, and not enforcing the
terms of the lease by requiring the defendant to refund the security deposit.