Nightmare as cannibal rats running wild cause blood to run down walls of home

Rats are running wild in a block of Leicester City Council-owned flats. Residents of the homes in Marwood Road, Stocking Farm, said the problem started in October and the authority's efforts to get rid of the vermin were not working. Mary Anne Gibbard said the rodents have been gnawing on her furniture and clothes and leaving droppings and urine across her home.



The 24-year-old said pest controllers set traps for the rats and have collected two or three carcasses a week, but the creatures were breeding faster than they could be killed. "It's horrible," she said. "I can't sleep at night because I can hear them scurrying about. They're in the roof and behind the walls. There are holes where they get in and there has been blood coming out of one of them. The pest control man says they eat their own babies. They have been weeing everywhere and leaving droppings.



"I have got up in the morning to find rat urine on my kitchen surfaces. They have also got in my cutlery draw. The council thinks they might have come up through the drains. I've got four traps from the council. They say they can't put down poison because they won't be able to get the bodies and they will rot and stink. I don't think it's fit for anyone to live here. The rats can breed every 21 days and have eight or nine babies. I can't imagine how many there might be."


YouTube link. Original BBC news video.

A Leicester City Council spokesman said: "Our pest control team has been working closely with the occupants of a number of flats in this building since the rat problem was first reported in October. We've made several visits to place traps, which have caught numerous rats. We've also made a number of structural repairs, including to the sewer system beneath the block. In some of the properties this action seems to have tackled the rat problem, but not in others. We are continuing investigations to establish the cause of the problem."