Mum of two living in rat hell for nine years says council has let her family down

Alec Doyle – Local democracy reporter 

A mum of two from north Wales says her children have been traumatised after suffering plagues of rats for nine years.

The resident – who wished to remain anonymous – is a tenant of Wrexham Council along with her two children, one of whom is autistic.

She says that the problem of rats has remained constant for almost a decade and the council has let her and her family down by failing to eradicate the problem or find them a suitable new home to live in.

“They are a joke,” she said. “The kids are traumatised by the whole thing. It is hell and I don’t want to come home anymore.

“We’ve have them coming out from the kitchen cupboards and out from under the bath. Neither of the kids will use the bathroom any more, they go to the toilet in a bucket because they’re so scared the rats will come out.”

Colony

She says they go above and beyond to keep the property clean and tidy but says there must be a colony nearby which has made her home part of its territory.

“It’s been happening on-and-off for nine years,” she said. “I’ve spoken to the previous tenant here too and she says she had the same problem.

“But the council won’t have it that there is a problem.”

She says there isn’t a part of the house that has been unaffected.

“They’ve been in the attic, under the floorboards, in the wall cavities, in the electric cupboard, in the food cupboards, under the bath.

“I’ve had the pest control out I don’t know how many times. They’ve been out almost every week for years.

“But every time they come they write ‘no activity’ so then the council assumes I’m just making it up.

“A couple of months ago they took the insulation out of the attic but that’s only after I’d thrown away thousands of pounds of things that had been chewed through or nested in. Some irreplaceable sentimental things like the kids stuff from when they were babies and some of my dad’s stuff I got after he passed away.

“The council don’t  care. They demand receipts for everything and how old the items were but they aren’t looking at the whole situation and the needs of my family to live without this problem. They’ve let us down.”

Baby milk

The rats have caused devastation, destroying food and cupboards and making it hard for anyone in the house to sleep.

“There’s a lot of activity. Recently they went through 36 cartons of the kids’ milk,” said the resident. “We’ve had massive ones and we’ve had litters here in the house where we had small baby ones.

“My autistic child is sensitive to sensory things and with the smell and the noise, I can see them in distress but I can’t imagine exactly how bad it is for them.

The sound at night is unbearable. The kids aren’t sleeping, they are having nightmares.

“Sometimes the council will fill a hole in the cupboard but they will quickly chew another hole through. Then when they drop dead in the walls or under the kitchen cupboards we have to deal with the smell of rotting rats.

“We’ve had some dead ones in traps and when they took the insulation out of the attic there was a load of dead ones went with that and a load of live ones running round their feet while they did the work.

“It’s got to that point where I can’t take it anymore.”

‘Impossible’

Wrexham Council did ask the family if they would consider moving to Coedpoeth earlier this month, but that is significantly further to go to school, particularly for the autistic child who already travels a long distance and with no car, moving there is impossible.

“They’ve had 10 doctors letters, an autism report, letters from the school but we are getting nowhere.

“We’ve had meetings with the council, we’ve had Shelter, Citizens Advice involved, we’ve had managed move meetings and it’s all been refused because we don’t meet the criteria.

“Coedpoeth would take us a lot further away from school and from our support network and with having a child with additional learning needs that is important. I have six areas on my preference list that are within a reasonable distance but they’ve not offered me any of those.

“I need to sort this, I can’t watch my kids suffer anymore.”

Deputy Leader of Wrexham Council and Lead Member for Housing Cllr David Bithell said: “We are aware of the tenant complaint and have sent pest control and offered advice on what the tenant can do to minimise and reduce the risk of vermin at the house.

“We did offer alternative housing that was declined. Housing offers are based on need, demand and supply. We aim to offer the most suitable properties based on those factors.”