A Portland father has sued the owner of his family’s apartment complex, alleging months of rodent problems ended in a terrifying moment when his 10-month-old son was found with a dead mouse in his mouth inside their northeast Portland unit.
The case has drawn attention because it turns an already disturbing pest complaint into a high-stakes habitability fight involving an infant, emergency medical care and a family that says it fled the apartment within days. Bryan Padilla alleges the property owner failed to keep the unit sanitary and safe despite repeated warnings about rodents. The lawsuit now places that dispute in Multnomah County court, where the central questions are whether the landlord failed in its legal duties and what damages, if any, the family can recover.
According to the complaint, the Padilla family moved into the apartment on Nov. 8. Padilla says that not long after they arrived, he began making maintenance requests about a rodent infestation inside the unit. The situation, he alleges, did not improve. Then, on Dec. 22, a mouse came through a hole in the wall and into the apartment, the suit says. The family’s baby boy picked up the dead mouse and put it in his mouth before his parents could stop him. Padilla later described his reaction in blunt terms, saying he was “just livid” and had to leave work immediately. He took the child to the emergency room for evaluation, turning what had been a housing complaint into a medical scare for the family.
Medical staff examined the boy and did not find signs of a serious problem from the contact described in the lawsuit. A summary of the visit cited in the reporting said there was no indication that rabies vaccination was needed at that time. Even so, the family says the incident pushed them past the point of trying to remain in the apartment. The complaint says they vacated the unit a couple of days later and later moved to California to be closer to relatives. In the court filing, Padilla says the conditions in the apartment affected sleep, eating, daily activities and the family’s overall sense of safety. The allegations have not been proven in court, and the case remains a civil dispute, not a criminal one. But the facts as laid out in the complaint are stark: a family says it repeatedly reported rodents, an infant came into contact with a dead mouse inside the home, and the parents decided they could no longer stay there.
The lawsuit names AMFP V Pine Village LLC as the defendant and describes the company as the owner and operator of the apartment complex. Reporting on the case identifies the property as the Davenport apartments in northeast Portland, a complex marketed online by Avenue5 Residential. Padilla’s attorney argues that Oregon landlords are required to keep rental units clean and fit for occupancy, including keeping them free of rodents and vermin. The suit says the owner failed to meet those obligations. It seeks roughly $122,000 in noneconomic damages and about $2,665 in rent repayment. That request puts the case in a familiar legal posture for landlord-tenant litigation: the tenant claims unsafe living conditions and emotional disruption, while the property owner will have the chance to deny the allegations, contest responsibility or challenge the amount of damages. As of the latest public reports, the property management company had not commented publicly on the lawsuit.
What makes the case especially striking is how ordinary the setting appears in the public record. There was no fire, collapse or police raid. Instead, the dispute centers on the everyday promise of a rental home: that walls, floors and living spaces will keep out hazards that should never reach a crib, a kitchen or a child at play. The complaint says a hole in the wall became the path that allowed the mouse into the unit. The family’s version of events suggests the infestation was not hidden or sudden but part of an ongoing problem they had already brought to management’s attention. That matters because civil negligence claims often turn on notice. A jury or judge may eventually have to decide not only whether the conditions were unacceptable, but whether the owner had enough warning and time to fix them before the Dec. 22 incident happened.
Padilla’s public statements have focused less on legal strategy than on the panic of the moment. The emergency room visit appears to have ended without the child suffering the kind of immediate infection or exposure that the parents feared, but the complaint frames the event as deeply disruptive all the same. The family says it broke its rental agreement to get out. That decision carries its own practical weight in the lawsuit. The parents are not only seeking compensation for distress; they are also asking for repayment of rent they say should not have been collected for a unit they viewed as unsafe. In that way, the case is about more than one horrifying episode. It is also about whether the apartment was habitable in the first place, and whether the family’s departure was a reasonable response to what they say they endured there.
The legal process is still in its early stage. No public ruling has been reported, and there was no publicly documented response from the defendant in the reports reviewed Monday. That means the next steps are likely to be routine but important: a formal response from the property owner, exchange of records, possible inspection evidence and court review of whether the case moves toward settlement or trial. For now, the public record is shaped mostly by the complaint and Padilla’s account, not by sworn testimony tested in court. The owner may eventually dispute the timeline, the extent of any infestation, the adequacy of maintenance efforts or the damages the family seeks. Those questions remain open.
As of Monday, the lawsuit stood as a vivid and unresolved housing claim: a father says repeated rodent complaints went unanswered, his infant son ended up with a dead mouse in his mouth, and the family left the apartment within days. The next public milestone will likely come when the defendant files its response or the court sets the next proceeding in Multnomah County.