Woman’s 'soul destroying' five-year nightmare to rid her home of rats and flies
A woman who has lived in a fly and rat-infested home for five years has described her struggle to rid her home of the pests as "soul-destroying".
Debra Burnett has lived in a house in the HU8 area of Hull for more than ten years, the last five of which she claims she has be cohabitating with rats and insects.
In 2018, rats started damaging her house, including the kitchen and bathroom, Hull Live reports.
She believes the rats came from a neighbouring property which had damaged soil stacks and she also found a redundant sewer pipe from her own property with holes in it.
Ms Burnett has been in contact with Yorkshire Water and Hull City Council’s Environmental Health team about her issues but each has claimed the issue is the responsibility of the other organisation.
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She said: “They’ve wrecked my house that I have worked hard for 14 years trying to make ends meet and I find it disgusting that no one even reported it. I go to work, come home and keep myself to myself but it’s been soul-destroying.
Debra says at times she has been left with 'hundreds of flies' over the floor and windows (Donna Clifford/Hull Live)“I live alone. I’ve lived in this house since 2006. Every night I sit there in the bathroom quietly and know I can’t do anything about it and I can randomly hear them squeaking sometimes.”
Ms Burnett said there are large holes in the back of her kitchen and under the floor which she has filled with wire wool. She also said she had to replace the flexi pipe on her toilet with a solid pipe because the rats are underneath and tried eating the sealant from the toilet.
Ms Burnett said the issues started in 2018 when a rat, which she believes came from a neighbouring property, started “eating its way” under the stairs and then to the other side of the property.
She contacted Environmental Health who started luring the rats with bait under the stairs and she said since then there has been a constant cycle of baiting and the rats dying.
Ms Burnett added: “This is the longest they've been baiting. Over a year now every two weeks they were coming. One was in the kitchen but it went back up the holes underneath the cupboard and went back out.
She says she can sometimes hear 'random squeaking' in her bathroom (Donna Clifford/Hull Live)“One night it was like something out of The Exorcist. The flies, hundreds of them flew out the back. I had to go home from work and shut all the doors and the floor was covered in flies and the windows were covered with flies.
“It looked like somebody had died. I felt physically ill. I didn’t want to eat or go home.”
She explained that when the rats have taken the bait, they die under the floor. They then decompose and flies lay eggs in the corpses that hatch into maggots, leading to more flies.
Ms Burnett said Environmental Health advised her to buy a CCTV camera for her drain which she did and then she discovered the redundant sewer pipe with holes in it.
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She has had to plug up holes with wire wool (Donna Clifford/Hull Live)She then contacted Yorkshire Water who said they would repair the pipe but afterwards they cancelled the digging process scheduled for June 17, 2022 to fix the broken pipe.
Ms Burnett claims Yorkshire Water told her that the cause of the rats was a secondary issue which turned out to be damage from a neighbouring property so they passed the case onto the council to deal with.
However, she said the council's Environmental Health team told her that the redundant pipe that Yorkshire Water were due to repair was the cause of the rats and not the soil stacks from the neighbouring property.
Tom Copeland, Principal Environmental Health Officer at Hull City Council, said: "Following a complaint of rats within the property, officers visited and laid poisoned baits and have made regular visits to check and replenish these baits since.
"To identify the defect allowing the rats to escape from the drainage system and into the property, a drainage survey was carried out in February 2022 by a contractor on behalf of the owner.
"During this survey, a number of defects on the sewer were identified. It is the responsibility of Yorkshire Water to make these repairs. They have been made aware of the work required and issues being caused."
A spokesperson for Yorkshire Water commented: "We have been out to investigate on a number of occasions but the rodent problem is not directly related to our network of pipes. We have met with Environmental Health and asked them to support Ms Burnett with the issue."
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