Rats and Fountains

It was an interesting case, not just in the details -- also in the way it affected me. Ever since working this investigation, I have a level of unease when I enter motel or hotel rooms. Doesn't matter whether the room is a palace or a dump, all I know is when I enter a room to interview a witness or an attorney's clients room, I feel a primal, involuntary shudder.

The reason for this is a client we will call Ramone, his wife Celia and their two kids, one about 6 months old, the other just about two.

Ramone just moved to the Seattle area from Portland. This was a couple years ago, when construction was booming. Ramone landed a job a job as a foreman on a commercial building.
The pay was good, the company was legit and had a great reputation -- he worked for them in Portland. There were even health benefits.

Both Hispanic and legal American citizens, Ramone told me he and Celia felt like they were beginning the American dream when he checked into the little motel on Highway 99, just south of the airport. It wasn't far from the building site.

Though the quarters were cramped for a family of four , it looked nice enough. It wasn't one of those pay-by-the-hour hooker motels. Nor, was it part of an chain. It was just an independent business entity, a family owned motel, along Highway 99 that catered to those in transition. From the outside it looked fairly nice on the outside.

Ramone paid weekly for the family's room, planned to stay a month...while they checked out the housing opportunities in their new city, Seattle.

It was the very first night in the motel when the first incident happened.

Ramone was laying in the big king-sized bed and turned out the lights, when, within seconds of darkness, he heard movement, scratching. His wife and children had fallen asleep earlier with the lights on. They were still asleep when he turned off the tv, the lights and heard the sounds. He described them as scratching and scraping sounds from other the bed. Then he felt something crawling over him.Lots of somethings.

Ramone turned to his right and flipped on the night lamp beside his bed. What he saw mortified him. Rats covered the beds, small rats and loads of them, streaming like army ants. As he looked around, he said he saw what was hundreds of them crawling out from under the bed.

As his eyes fully adjusted to the light and his brain kicked into gear, he realized the rats were escaping a hole in the inner spring where they lived, running over his sleeping wife and baby, also in the bed...
he could not stop from screaming.
"Ayyyyyyyy Celia" he said he shouted.
His wife and children woke groggily as he got them to flee the room in their night clothes. Ramone never went anywhere without his wallet, so he grabbed that and his cell phone on the way out. Then he slammed the rat room door shut and they went into the manager's office.

The motel owners were profusely apologetic Ramone said. As Ramone dialed 911, the manager said they said they'd give him another room complementary. Ramone would hear none of it.

The police arrived, opened the door to Ramone's ex-room and closed it quickly. One officer told me another officer with a rat phobia puked.
It was filled with rats everywhere. Turned out they'd been living for "who knows how long" the officer said, in the box springs. When the lights turned out at night, they snuck out. How long this had been going on before Ramone busted them is a thought I care not to ponder.

Obviously, when I met Ramone and Celia and the kids to hear their story, it was in their new hotel room. This was fancier hotel, part of a chain, just about a mile north and across the street. Evidently the rat hotel owner had a heart, or maybe the police forced him to have one.
Either way, they agreed to put him up in this fancy chain hotel for two weeks free if Ramone didn't sue the rat hotel. Ramone agreed and moved to the hotel a little north and whole lot fancier.

I noted the two spouting fountains each set back from the fancy hotel's entrance by bushes before I walked into the vast, upscale lobby. Those fountains and the hotel I was entering was the target of my investigation, only they didn't know it.

I smiled at the front desk clerk, then headed straight to Ramone's room. Ramone was still horrified by the rat episodes he recounted it to me. He said he was scared to sleep at night even in this fancy hotel at first. Turning off the lights triggered "great fear in me" Ramone said.
But by the fourth night, he was sleeping sound next to his beloved Celia.

It was the next morning when everything went belly up for Ramone and his family again.
Because it was on that particular morning, the fancy hotel decided to install the two fancy fountains I had noted on my way into hotel.

When they were first installed, they were not installed properly and they leaked. So on day four, Ramone exited the hotel to go to work while his wife slept. He said at 6:00 am, he walked through the front door and the fountains, which had an excessive water supply leak overnight that flooded the marble entry way leading to the exit.

Just as Ramonr stepped from the inside to the outside, he slipped on the slick surface, landed on the wet concrete and broke his right wrist and shattered his right kneecap. The broken wrist and shattered kneecap shattered Ramone's job possibilities and his family's future. And because it didn't happen on the job, he wasn't entitled to L&I.

So there I sat in a chair next to Ramone who was splayed oput on the fancy hotel bed, Celia tending to to the children while they both took turns telling me the whole story. The rats... the fall... and the most recent twist.

Fearing they might be sued, the owners of the fancy hotel chain told them they would have only a one week comp stay instead of two. They said this was because the rat motel had been condemned and shut down due to infestation. The fancy hotel decided since the rat hotel couldn't pay the extra week, they wouldn't. Even though it was the fancy hotel's fault Ramone fell and broke his bones in the first place.

I couldn't understand the logic in this. Nor could Ramone. And that's why he called the lawyer who called me.

Ramone wanted to sue the hotel for his medical bills, future medical bills, lost wages/career and pain and suffering. He could no longer provide for his family, lost his job, had no idea where his next dollar was coming from and would be homeless in one week without income.
And all, he said, because "some pinche didn't install a fountain right."

When I left the family and headed through the fancy hotel to get some photos then hopefully, get to my care without any confrontations, I pondered the possibilities of a settlement or suit.

My feeling was the lawyers would have to sue, because the hotel manager told Ramone he should have looked more carefully where he walking. They'd deny liability, I thought.

I took pictures of the hotel exterior, the fountains recently moved.
No one at the hotel asked me what I was doing or why. I am used to be chased out of places I am investigating. Being ignored made my job that made my job much easier.
I photographed the circular marks in the concrete where the fountains originally stood. By the time my photos were done, I agreed with Ramone.

Ramone said the hotel should have put up warning signs, "caution, wet". Ramone also said the hotel knew there was leak in the fountains because the morning he slipped, they had a repair crew on the spot and moved the fountains much further from the entrance. I had pictures of that.

Fortunately for Ramone, the lawyers agreed with him and took his case.

I have no idea how it ended... whether it went to trial or it was settled. I just do my job and step away until I am called back if and when necessary for further investigations, a deposition or jury testimony.

In Ramone's case all I know is his story is always with me.
I even have dreams of rats running from beds and fountains running amuk.
Sometime, this business... Private Investigation, it's like a Grade B movie. Only worse.
Because it's real.