'Super rats' as big as cats are immune to rat poison in Milton Keynes

Faye Joyce has rats running around her garden and nesting inside the cavity walls and sewage pipes of her Stantonbury home.

Over the months, her landlords have spent £1,500 with a private pest control company to try to eradicate them.

But the larger-than-life vermin gobble down the poison and then return for more, said Faye.

"The pest control company tried even stronger poison, but that had no effect either. They say the rats are building up a resistance to it," said Faye, who has a seven-year-old son.

The company also set sturdy metal traps all around the ground floor maisonette, which is in Ormonde. But the rats have learned to eat the bait and avoid activating the trap, said Faye.

"They really are super rats. And they're huge - the size of an small cat," she said.

"They're scared of nothing. People say rats and nocturnal and wary of people but these run right up to you when you are in the garden and they scurry around in my wall cavities all day and every day."

The strain of living with so many rats and the noise of them all around her has made Faye will with stress and anxiety.

"I am at my wit's end. I am fighting a losing battle and I just don't know what to do," she said.

"My mental health has never been so bad. The anxiety and panic attacks I am having are becoming more regular. I am trying to stay out the house with my son as much as I can due to feeling unsafe. I feel I'm failing as a mother because its my job to keep my son safe and with all this going on, I feel I am not doing so.

She is convinced the rats are encouraged by a "rubbish dump" left by fly-tippers directly behind her home.

"There's a big pile of rubbish that's been there since last year and there are also garages nearby that are full of rubbish. It's a breeding ground for rats, yet the council are not doing anything to clean it up. I've asked them numerous times."

Faye said environmental health officials have been out three times to visit the site.

"They've just inspected the rubbish but done nothing to get it removed," she said.

The Citizen is awaiting comment from the council.

Meanwhile the British Pest Control Association (BPCA) has confirmed that there is a new generation of rats carrying a genetic mutation which makes them resistant to conventional poison.

A study by the University of Reading in 2018 identified "the massive extent of L120Q resistance across the whole of central southern England."

Dee Ward-Thompson from BPCA said at the time: “The study highlights the fact that resistance is growing in rat species across a swathe of the country.

"It also reports that rats without the genetic mutation are being killed off by poison, so the resistant species are taking their place, leaving a growing population of resistant pure-breds.

“With their numbers expanding there could be a significant risk to public health if their population is left unchecked, in both urban and rural environments.”