Disabled Nottingham woman injured after rats chew equipment in council house, forcing her to drag herself to bed.
The rats first appeared in May 2024, and pest control now visits every two weeks to try to control the growing rat population. Anne Vivian-Smith has health problems due to the rats; rat urine soaked her loft insulation, and she also has trouble sleeping because of it.
Anne is 54 and uses a wheelchair. She has lived there with her husband for ten years, utilizing hoists to move around her home easily. Rats chewed the wiring on her bedroom hoist, so now it no longer works, which forces her to drag herself to bed and resulted in a ruptured tendon in her elbow.
Anne loves her neighborhood, but the rats bother her, despite pest control having visited twelve times. They say the rats will keep returning until the roof and drain get fixed. Anne says she is trying to care for the council’s property.
The council wants to inspect it first, saying repairs could take ten weeks after inspections, and they inspected it three times already. Anne needs her roof and drain repaired, as well as new insulation. A visit was set for March 26 originally, but the council visited February 14.
The council tried other solutions before to find how rats get in. They visited twice that week, but the issue continues. The council assessed it on February 14, and a drain scan is booked for early next week, as they keep Anne informed about their plan.
Someone came to unblock her drain on February 14. The scan revealed the drain collapsed, and no work has happened since. Another scan is set for February 17 now.