Residents organize to exterminate rats
Destiny Jones lives in an East Lake Courts apartment so rat-infested she’s afraid for her two children to sleep there. Rats crawl across her bed while she sleeps and play tag on her floor when she’s awake.
And she’s not alone.
Chasity Bradley said rats leave droppings between her couch cushions. And she always exceeds her utility limit because she’s too terrified to sleep with the lights off. Her son once found a rat in his shoe.
They’ve complained to the housing manager. And Jones’ relatives wrote letters to Chattanooga Housing Authority board members about the rats and to CHA Executive Director Betsy McCright, but got little
response, Jones said.
“We’ve been working diligently with exterminators to address the issue of rodents at East Lake,” McCright said Friday. “We’ve seen some progress made with the treatments being used. However, the other key component is education. It’s important for residents to properly dispose of food, as well as keep their units clean. Rodents won’t stay where there is no food source,” she said.
The housing manager offered Jones rat traps. Jones said the exterminators also came, but it didn’t help.
“I’m just tired of rats,” she said Thursday after killing a rat earlier in the day. She wants to move, but she can’t afford it.
She has been battling rats since November. Before that, she had bedbugs that left her arms and her 1-year-old son’s face scattered with red bumps from bug bites. Her home was successfully treated for bedbugs, but roaches crawled up her curtains and on her walls Thursday while she talked.
Jones and Bradley said they felt embarrassed to publicly discuss rodents in their apartments, but they’re doing all they know to do to address the problem.
The stereotype is that people in the projects have rats and roaches because they are lazy, dirty and broke, Jones said, who works part-time while attending school to be a dental hygienist.
“The reality,” Bradley said, “is that we really can’t help it. We clean with bleach, all-purpose cleaners. We clean up everything, but they are still here.”
This week, the women distributed fliers announcing a Sunday meeting for all residents who have rats, bedbugs and “uncontrollable roaches.”
The flier read: “Have you complained about the rats, roaches and bedbugs and nothing has been done? It’s time to stand up and make the housing authority make our living environment livable.”
If other tenants are willing to make written complaints about rats and rodents in their apartment, the women plan to send the complaints directly to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
They hope their efforts lead to action so the rats can’t come back.