‘Plague of mice infested my home before rats flooded the kitchen – we’re living in fear’

A mum whose family is living in a rat-infested home that has stopped them using the kitchen has said her children are traumatised.

Stephanie Hamilton, 37, claims her family first battled a plague of mice for years after moving into their flat in Islington, London, in 2016.

But last year the mice problem was replaced by a scourge of rats, yet her housing association Peabody has refused to rehome her.

Stephanie says the rats have flooded her kitchen by biting through pipes and forced her three children, aged 15, 12 and six, to abandon their bedroom.

The hotel receptionist told Metro: ‘It is horrible. It is like living in fear. My kids are traumatised.

‘All they keep asking me us why can’t they give us a better house.’

The family moved into the block of Peabody flats, which sit above a food market, in 2016.

Within a year, Stephanie says she first saw a mouse when she making breakfast, sparking the first of many pest control visits from Peabody.

The mum claims that was the start of a constantt mice infestation.

She said: ‘It reached a stage where mice were coming out from everywhere for three years straight.

‘I was catching six or seven mice every day. Every single room in the house. We had to disinfect the counter every day.’

The issue disappeared for two years during the Covid pandemic after Peabody sent a surveyor round to fill the mice holes, but the pesky animals eventually came back.

Then, early last year, the house ‘started to stink… worse than when mice would die in the past’.

Stephanie continued: ‘Pest control came and as soon as they opened up the cupboard they found a massive rat under there.

‘From then has only been rats coming into my house, we haven’t seen a tiny mouse since’.

In autumn that year, the mum was about to go to the toilet when she saw a rat’s ‘long tail behind the sink’.

For a week the family did not use the bathroom and had to use one in the supermarket below their flat.

At night the children would have to go to the toilet behind a tree.

Peabody again sent pest control, but when Stephanie asked to be rehoused, she said she was told ‘there is nothing we can do’.

The receptionist says that line has been what Peabody has told her for years. She claims tenants only get placed somewhere else if their house floods.

The family did not see a rat for longer than six months until they came back with a vengeance in July this year.

On July 6, Stephanie was about to make breakfast for her kids when a rat ran from across the kitchen floor.

‘I screamed so loudly my kids woke up straight away and they knew it was a rat. It was massive,’ she said.

She immediately ran out the room and saw the rodent jumping onto a counter before she shut every door leading to the kitchen.

Since then, the family haven’t used the kitchen. Instead, they smuggled their air fryer and microwave into a tiny passage.

Stephanie explained: ‘The only thing we do in the kitchen is take milk out of the fridge next to the door. I leave a light on in the kitchen at all times.

‘When we want to go to the kitchen, we put on long tracksuit and trainers. We bang the door so the rat runs away before we go in.’

‘It took some bravery for me to go into the kitchen’

Just two days later, the family woke up to find the kitchen had flooded.

Stephanie said: ‘It took some bravery for me to go into the kitchen. Water was spraying behind the machine.

‘Peabody sent a contractor out and the guy pulled away the machine and said the rat bit into the pipe.

‘The water has dried up but if you go into the kitchen it is a total mess. The rats have bitten off everything. They have bitten off the foam in the holes.’

The broken pipe means Stephanie is now cleaning her clothes in the bath.

She also has to buy breakfast, lunch and dinner for her children because she can’t use the kitchen.

Stephanie claims there are a handful of rats now in the kitchen – where she can hear them ‘moving stuff’ – and elsewhere in the house.

Weeks after the flooding, Stephanie was in the passage when she ‘looked down and saw a big rat’.

She locked the rodent in the cupboard and called Peabody, who sent around pest control the next day.

She said: ‘The pest controller opened the cupboard and killed the rat. Every time he hit that rat you could hear it scream. My blood went cold. It took him so long.’

While the dead rat was big, Stephanie says the one she saw in the kitchen was larger.

Her biggest fear is the health risks the rats could bring her children.

She explained: ‘Rats carry so many viruses. If something happened to me or my kids, what are you gonna tell me? “I’m sorry” won’t be good enough.’

Her son also fell off his bunk bed and injured his leg when a rat ran into his bedroom. Since then the children now sleep either with their mum or in a makeshift bed in the living room.

Stephanie has continually begged Peabody to move her but with no success.

She said: ‘I called Peabody and explained it to them time and time again, but they said they couldn’t move me. So I have to live with the rats.

‘Peabody told me they would send a surveyor to look at the holes. I understand that but we don’t want to be here.

‘It has been nine years that we have been living in fear.

‘We can’t get back to normal. My kids do not want to be here. It is embarrassing for my kids. We don’t allow anyone to come to our house.’

Despite Peabody pledging to sent pest control more regularly, Stephanie is so distressed she has threatened not to pay rent until she is moved.

The hotel receptionist said she asked Islington council to house her at a drop-in session, but she was told that wasn’t possible because she already had a property with Peabody.

Stephanie said she was warned not to make herself intentionally homeless, otherwise the council would send social services.

What has Peabody said?

A Peabody spokesperson said: ‘We’re very sorry for the distress this has caused Stephanie and her family. We understand how difficult the situation has been and are doing everything we can to put things right.

‘We’ve carried out pest-control treatments and our specialist team that handles complex repairs is looking at how we can resolve this as quickly as possible.

‘The shortage of family sized social homes in central London makes rehousing really challenging, but we’ll continue to support Stephanie as our team identifies a lasting solution to the problems.’

Cllr Jackson, Executive Member for Homes and neighborhoods in Islington said: ‘We want everyone in Islington to have a decent place to call home. Any household can apply to be homeless, and our team will conduct a homeless investigation.

‘The housing law is very clear in this area, and the council will always follow the law.

‘If the council accepted that they have a homeless duty, the household would remain in temporary accommodation until a suitable vacancy occurs in council housing.’

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