When Chicago health inspectors walked into the Dollar Tree at 3620 E. 118th Street on March 25, they found approximately 100 rodent droppings scattered through the rear storage area — under shelves, on bottom shelves, in the restrooms. Standard protocol: document the violation, tell the store to clean up and call pest control, schedule a re-inspection. The store had a week to get its act together. Inspectors came back on April 1. Still about 100 droppings. Now also in the office area and the customer service aisles where people shop. The re-inspection result: Fail, with a citation issued under Chicago Municipal Code 7-38-020(A).
Same Problem, Worse Spread
The April 1 complaint re-inspection at store #640 was designed specifically to verify that the rodent activity flagged on March 25 had been addressed, according to records in the Chicago Department of Public Health food inspection database. It had not. Inspector notes state flatly: “Upon re-inspection still observed evidence of pest activity on site. Observed about 100 rodent droppings scattered in various areas of the rear storage area, office area and customer service aisles.”
The customer service aisles are the new addition. The March 25 findings were concentrated in the back; by April 1, the droppings had made their way into the areas where customers browse and shop. Two other violations were also cited on re-inspection: holes in walls throughout the rear dry storage and restrooms — unfixed structural gaps that inspectors flagged as both pest entry points and surfaces that can’t be properly cleaned — and missing covered waste receptacles in the toilet rooms. Neither had been addressed since the first visit.
Those wall holes tell the real story. You can clean up droppings all day, but if the entry points aren’t sealed, you’re just tidying up between visits. Whatever response the store mounted in the week between inspections, it clearly didn’t include patching the walls.
Why This Location Matters
The 118th Street Dollar Tree accepts EBT and stocks food, snacks, drinks, and pantry staples alongside the chain’s usual household goods. For Hegewisch — a working-class neighborhood on Chicago’s far southeast side, buffered by industrial land and the Calumet River — it’s one of the more accessible retail food options around. Dollar Tree and Family Dollar locations have become de facto food-adjacent retail anchors in lower-income Chicago neighborhoods, which means when one of them fails inspection, the people most affected are the ones with the fewest alternatives…