Officials from the D.C. Health Department will be giving the Occupy DC camps a check-up on Thursday afternoon.
Inspectors will look into sanitation conditions in the bathrooms and in the kitchen areas, and also check on how the campers are keeping warm in the face of the colder weather.
Health Department officials will also look for evidence of rodent infestation. The Washington Examiner wrote that an increase in rats has been reported around McPherson Square.
The Health Department says that after the inspections of both camps, it will make recommendations on how the living conditions could be improved.
Some handy campers had tried to insulate against the heat by building a wooden shed in the middle of McPherson Square, but officers subsequently knocked it down, in one of the most contentious days of the campers’ occupation.
On Wednesday, the AP reports that Occupy members filed paperwork in court asking a judge to keep the National Park Service from taking their tents or evicting them.
Court papers claim that police have seized property belonging to the protesters without notice, and have not given protesters a chance to recover the items.
An order from a judge last month required the government to give the protesters 24-hour notice if it plans to enforce regulations prohibiting camping or sleeping in the square. But Jeffrey Light, a lawyer with the demonstrators, is asking for the government to be permanently prevented from removing tents.
