Heriverto Hernandez woke up after 3 in the morning in his garden-level apartment in Rogers Park, Chicago. Something was moving across his face. “I felt them on my face and brushed them off”, he told Fox32 Chicago. They were rats, and one of them had bitten him.
The photos he later shared show swelling around one eye and cuts on his forehead. He had to receive medical treatment, including a rabies vaccine and antibiotics, and weeks later he was still experiencing eye irritation. According to him, he had reported the infestation for months without the building management resolving anything.
Hernandez is one of more than 60 tenants organized in a union denouncing rats and cockroaches in several units. ARK Management, the company that manages the property, says it has invested more than 1.5 million dollars in improvements and that he rejected a relocation, in addition to being in the process of eviction for not paying rent for eight months. A tenants’ attorney was blunt: the obligation to maintain safe conditions does not depend on whether you owe rent or not.
