Consumer complaints on Landlord-tenant issues

[appt_life]

Hi,
I live in Pennsylvania and we have an issue with landlord that we could not resolve. I lived in the appt. for more than an year and we found that we got bedbugs in the appt. after one year and reported to management. The management wants to charge us on that amount and we question that. This has been a dispute and when we vacated we got a huge bill about thrice what we should owe. We basically said bedbug control is appt. responsibility but they don't agree. The lease agreement says nothing about bedbugs not covering. I can give more details if any one is interested in helping me.
I want to approach the consumer court for this:
Here are my questions:
1. Should I pay the bill first and then dispute it? I still have another 30 days to pay the bill but the management is threatening to go to credit agencies in case of late payments. I don't want to screw up my credit history.
2. Can the management still go to credit agencies if there an outstanding dispute?
3. I found the http://www.attorn/eygeneral.gov/ that deals with consumer complaints. Is that a good option?
4. The rent agreement says that both the tenant and landlord waive their rights for any legal proceedings brought by each other. Can I still file a consumer complaint or I already waived my right?

Thanks a lot for the help.

You may go to small claims and argue that the building caused the problem not you. It would help to have some kind of professional assessment of what really happened.

I would go to small claims court. If you can prove that you did not have bed bugs before you moved there you may win. It is not an easy thing to prove, you may have to bring witnesses that stayed at your place before you moved into this apartment.