Brooklyn Mother Says Rat Bit Young Son While He Slept

A Brooklyn mother says she and her 3-year-old son are still traumatized after she found the boy covered in bite marks and blood in his bed from what she believes was a rat attack.

"There was blood all over his pillow," said Marilyn Abreu, who lives in a Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment with her son. 

The boy had open wounds across his face, neck and feet. Abreu believes he was bitten by a rat or several rats while he slept on Aug. 21. 

"It wasn't no scratches, it was the actual teeth," she said. 

What's worse, Abreu said, is her son is a special-needs child who rarely speaks and likely could not cry out for help. 

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"I"m right here in the next room, and I didn't hear nothing. That's what hurts me most," she said. 

The boy, Nathaniel, was taken to two different hospitals, where doctors who examined him also believed he was bitten by rats, documents show. 

The apartment sits above a closed subway entrance that has been infested with rats for years, according to Abreu, and she said they're now chewing through her walls.

She's complained about the vermin, and the building management company has brought in an exterminator, documents show, but the rats only gnaw their way through again, Abreu said.

Other neighbors in the building are fed up with the condition of the building, too.

"My cat killed one rat in front of my door," said one man. "It's ridiculous, I call Wavecrest all the time, but no one calls back."

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Wavecrest Management did bring in an exterminator after Nathaniel was bitten, documents show, and pest remediation treatments can be seen in the kitchen. 

Records from the 311 city hotline also show a complaint on Aug. 21 was resolved eight days later, but Abreu said she still hears rats in the walls and her son is now afraid to go to sleep.

"I'm scared," she said. "And my son, he doesn't want to sleep in his bed."

Abreu wants to maintain her rent-stabilized rate with the current building management company, and is on a mission to be relocated to another building. 

Calls to Wavecrest were not returned Friday. 

Follow Checkey Beckford on Twitter @Checkey4NY

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