A MUM-OF-THREE who has been forced out of her Chippenham home due to a rat infestation is blaming her housing association for not doing more to support her and her family.

Kim Davies moved to Chippenham in February, along with her three sons, eight-year-old Owen, six-year-old Zac and four-year-old Harley, to be closer to her mum, Heather Dance, who died in May.

But shortly after moving into the house on London Road, which is owned by housing association GreenSquare, the family has been plagued by rats, with Miss Davies claiming to have seen seven at once.

“We have had the rats since February. This is not our problem this is GreenSquare’s problem but they won’t do anything,” said Miss Davies, 31.

“It’s got me so depressed that all I do is cry about everything.

“I went to the doctor and she thinks I’m having panic attacks because I can’t get the damn thing out of my head.

“I have a four-year-old playing up because he just wants to go home and my six-year-old doesn’t want to go back because he’s too scared.”

Miss Davies and her sons have been forced to live at her dad’s home due to the problem and she had to ask her ex-husband’s gran to pay for a pest controller to come out.

“There’s a four-inch hole where the rats are coming in.

“We think it used to be an air vent and when they did the kitchen they did nothing with it, but they are in the cavity of the walls,” added Miss Davies, who is a carer to her sons.

“The pest controller we have had out said to GreenSquare that he was going to report it to environmental health.

“They did send their own pest controller and he said it’s going to be a nightmare to get rid of them and the best thing would be to knock the house down.”

The hole which the rats were escaping from has now been bordered up and traps laid inside the house to try and solve the problem.

Ian Yates, maintenance services manager at GreenSquare, said: “It’s generally up to residents themselves to seek advice and take their own action to deal with pest infestations – and to contact their local council’s pest control team if the problem continues.

“In this case the council’s pest control team has fully baited the property in order to swiftly get rid of the rats.

“One of our surveyors has visited the property to see how we could help and undertaken minor works to reduce the likelihood of the problem occurring again in the future.”