Retired Army Lt. Col. Curtis Welborn Jr. is fighting to keep himself and his wife from being evicted from their tiny studio apartment, the Chicago Tribune reports.
Welborn, 89, has been told by his building’s management that he needs to be out of the apartment by May 31.
Wellborn tells the Chicago Tribune he's been told it's because of bedbugs. But he sees the affair as a matter of honor — a sense shaped by military service that began in a World War II bomber. Small in stature but martial in bearing, he answers the phone with a crisp flourish: "Col. Welborn here."
Welborn admits there are bedbugs, but says they came from next door — retreating to regroup, as it were, when that apartment was fumigated. Besides, he says, he was the one who brought the matter to light by calling the city's help line, about a year ago. He thought it a top-secret communication. Evidently the building inspector didn't.
"311 betrayed me," Welborn said. "We were threatened with eviction."
The management company, reports the Chicago Tribune, says it was the other way around: The bedbugs originated in the Welborns' apartment and, because the couple didn't cooperate with an exterminator called in by the company, spread to surrounding premises.
Either way, that initial skirmish ended in a truce: Welborn got a lawyer, and the eviction issue wasn't pressed. But a few months ago, he was informed their lease would not be renewed.
Click to read more on the WWII veteran’s fight to stay in his apartment from the Chicago Tribune
