Our ‘forgotten’ street is so overrun with rats we feel like prisoners… no one’s doing anything & it’s unbearable
PETRIFIED residents say they have been left “abandoned” in a “filthy” street – where rats run free and mice fester in the walls.
People living on an estate in Fallowfield, Manchester claim their lives have become a misery.
Long-standing residents on Avian Drive and Sopwith Drive in Fallowfiled have an ongoing rat issue after years of complaints.
Their life has become “unbearable” and neighbours have begged their housing association to fix it.
Overgrown bushes have become infested with dead rats and mice – which have now entered their homes.
Resident Ann Geraghty, at Yew Tree Road, told Manchester Evening News how the area is now a nest for pests.
“The estate is infested with rats, you see them every day. I had a dead one in my back garden.
“Pest control couldn’t believe the size of the thing. It was huge.
“It’s like we just expect it. I feel like I can’t let the kids out. We’re living in a nightmare here,” she fumed.
The pest problem intensified when the council decided to build a community garden between Sopwith Drive and Yew Tree Road.
Neighbour Paul Murgatroyd said: “Rather than cure the problem of the rats, the council has brought them to our doorstep.
“There’s no urgency to help us, we have become a forgotten estate. You feel a prisoner in your own home and in the area,” he said.
Furious neighbours have now urged One Manchester Housing Association, which owns part of the land, to uproot the rat burrows.
They have slammed the association for not taking care of the green spaces and for delays in pest controls.
Elaine Archer, who has lived in the estate for 10 years, said that the pest treatments have not solved the issue as they’re now getting in the burrows.
She said: “I’m a carer and gardening brought me refuge but I can’t do it anymore. I know this issue has taken a hit on other residents’ mental health.
“It’s sad we have to beg and beg and still nothing is being done.”
One Manchester Housing Association have apologised and said to be working on the area with contractors and pest control to resolve the issue.
Manchester Council added that they have provided measures to help residents fix the problem.
Councillor Lee-Ann Igbon, Executive Member for Vibrant Neighbourhoods, said tenants are now able to access the pest control services offered by the council for free.
It comes as residents on the UK’s “worst” street said their picturesque area morphed into a gang-riddled hellscape.
Bushway Close in the Brierley Hill area of Birmingham was an unremarkable collection of little bungalows.
But when the council emptied the bungalows and abandoned them, residents saw the road descended into a fire-ravaged free-for-all swarming with rats.
Elsewhere, residents in Swansea in Wales branded their area the “worst” in the UK for rat invasions.
With one local revealing how she returned home from a summer holiday only to discover her three-bed home had been taken over by giant rats.
Donna Riley, claims the rats, some as long as two and a half foot, had eaten her son’s new bedroom carpet, chewed through her front door and demolished everything in her kitchen cupboards.