MT. HOPE, The Bronx (WABC) — A woman from the Bronx is fighting a losing battle — she says her apartment is being overrun by rats. After repeated calls for help to her landlord and complaints to the city, she is now worried about her health.
Cora Robinson – armed with a piece of plywood – spends her days trying to defend her home against rats.
“I thought it would keep them from running around the baseboard, but now what they are doing – they’re so big, they jump over it,” Robinson said.
Robinson says at least two rats were rummaging around her kitchen on Friday night. Any hope of hosting for Easter went right out the window.
“I’m tired of cleaning poop off the stove. I mean if you turn the oven on, it smells like them,” she says.
Robinson says it is wearing on her.
“I can’t sleep, I’m not eating. And if I don’t stop this, I’m going to wind up in the hospital. I almost wound up there yesterday,” she adds.
The breast cancer survivor already deals with health issues and is worried about what she and her dog are exposed to.
“Her food and her bed and her water are in my bedroom. I can’t leave it out here because they’ll get into it. I’m just done. I’m just so disgusted, because it’s not right that I should have to live like this,” she says.
She has filed complaints with the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, which, according to documents, has cited the landlord in the past.
Eyewitness News left a message for Asden Management and emailed the landlords, all of which were the respondents in a tenant lawsuit in 2023 that alleged unlivable conditions at 1777 Grand Concourse. The tenants’ lawyer says the case is still pending.
Robinson says she would love to just move out of her building, but at 71 years old, she just can’t afford to. She says something is very wrong in this city if a senior can’t live comfortably.
“All these people need to come and take a look and smell. That’s what I wish they would do,” she says.
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