The Kahala Islander Apartments in Inglewood, CA have reached a settlement following a bed bug lawsuit by residents.
Liliana Martinez and her family suffered from bed bugs for a period of several months in 2010. The manager of the complex told them to throw out all their furniture and sleep on the floor.
Bed bug treatment proved to be ineffective, as residual chemicals were left on the few belongings the family hadn’t thrown away. The infestation persisted for months afterward, and the family was continuously bitten.
Martinez’s son Jorge Jr., who was only a toddler at the time, still has scars left by bed bug bites nearly a decade later.
“Just seeing how he would scratch all the time and nothing would heal because it would start bleeding again. It was very emotional, very stressful,” Martinez told NBC Los Angeles.
The apartment complex has agreed to pay the family $1.6 million, the largest payout for a single family in any bed bug case ever.
Martinez says that $880,000 of the awarded money will go toward treating Jorge Jr.’s injuries. “It’s basically for Jorge to try and get rid of the scars, we don’t want him to have scars forever.”
The attorney representing Kahala Islander Apartments declined to give a statement.
The details regarding this settlement were initially reported here.
