A woman was forced to wear a hazmat suit in her garden as she battles a rat infestation invading her home.
The first thing Lesleyanne Walker does every morning is put on her hazmat suit before heading outside and checking for rodents before safely letting her dog out.
Her neighbour Marina Gvilova, who lives opposite in Bushey, near Watford, has even had her car damaged by rats eating the plastic under the bonnet.
Ms Walker, who suffers from anxiety, said the infestation came from insects burrowing into a neighbour’s neglected garden.
She told MailOnline: “This is absolutely disgusting. I shouldn’t have to live like this.”
The first thing Lesleyanne Walker, 57, does each morning is put on a protective suit and check her garden for rats as she and her Hertfordshire neighbors deal with “a colony of rats” in their path.
Residents of Colne Avenue, Bushey, are frequently encountering live and dead rats despite raising concerns with their landlord, Watford Community Housing, for more than a year.
Lesleyanne’s neighbour Marina Gvilova had her new car ruined because she was told it was rats chewing through the parts under the bonnet.
And he added: “How I am with my anxiety, it takes me a long time to open that door and leave because I don’t know what I’m going to find.”
However, Ms Walker says her landlord, Watford Community Housing (WCH), abandoned her despite making complaints dating back to April 2020.
She moved to Colne Avenue, where terraced houses sell for around £400,000, in 2007 and suspects her pest problems are due to rubbish left in the garden of another WCH tenant.
After seeing nine rat burrows in his yard one morning, Walker began wearing the hazmat suit.
She said: ‘I’m nearly 58 and this is the first real home I’ve ever had. It’s beautiful. I love my garden so much, now look at it.
“I can afford food for my cat and dog, and then any little treats I can save I put in my garden.”
Her mornings are spent cleaning her garden, stuffing rat holes with chicken wire, and checking rat traps.
Outside authorities first became aware of it last year, when she saw rats in her garden for days on end.
She said: ‘Last year around this time I broke my foot and I sat here with my foot up watching the amount of rats coming from there (under the fence) running with food.
‘That was one day, then it was two days, then it was three days, then it was four days and that’s when I called the city hall.’
She paid £18 for pest control to make three visits, first to the donkeys, then to set baits and traps before returning to see what the results were, but has since been unable to get any more such professional help.
But the house was visited again this year as part of the government’s Great British Insulation Scheme to reduce energy bills.
Ms Walker says her project manager, responsible for sorting out the new insulation issue, has been “absolutely incredible” in trying to get the housing association to act, but has received mixed signals about who is actually responsible for the problem.
‘Look at my house, it’s wonderful. I just want my garden to reflect that,’ she added.
The 57-year-old says she has been told residents are responsible for disposing of dead rats themselves, even though their bins are only collected fortnightly.
Pictured: Holes next to Marina’s fence where rodents have found their way in. Both Lesleyanne and Marina blame their rat problems on other WCH tenants.
As well as being killed by cats and taken home, dead rats have also been seen on the street in Colne Avenue.
Mrs Walker has now poured more money into this nightmare situation by investing in bottles of ‘trash odour eliminator’.
And the smell is even worse in the house opposite, occupied by Mrs Gvilova, 51, and her family.
Ms Gvilova has lived there for a decade and believes her home is being ruined by “a colony of rats” from another WCH tenant’s property.
“When I got this house it was like I won the lottery,” he said. “I was screaming and dancing in the office when I got the phone call.
‘And we’ve been gardening for so long that I’ve spent thousands of pounds on the garden because I love spending time there. The same for my children.’
His new Toyota C-HR hybrid suffered nearly a thousand pounds worth of damage while sitting in the driveway due to what the garage suspected were rats chewing on internal parts.
Ms Gvilova said she is now “terrified” of leaving her car in the driveway for fear of further damage.
It’s been a year since he first reported that issue, but he’s been told that the latest incident won’t help the case find a solution sooner.
The family cat has brought home countless dead rats in the past 12 months, but “the only action they (the housing authority) are taking is putting black box traps in my yard.”
But Mrs. Gvilova insisted: “I don’t need those boxes,” because the cat brings the rats with it.
Their main problem remains the smell.
“I am literally being denied the right to use my garden,” she said.
“We spent the whole summer there. We have a lot of flies and mosquitoes, they bite me everywhere.
‘My family is suffering, my finances are suffering and it also affects your social life. I can’t invite anyone over because I’m too embarrassed.
‘It gets to the point that I can’t even open a window because instead of fresh air I get that smell.
‘Sometimes I feel like crying. God forbid anyone should have a neighbour like that. Why did I have such bad luck?’
The houses on Colne Avenue (pictured) sell for around £400,000. A WCH spokesman said it is actively working with residents “to identify and address all possible sources of the problem”.
WCH says it is actively engaging with residents and doing everything it can to support them.
A spokesperson added: “We are aware of these concerns and have appointed a pest control specialist. They have already taken initial steps to address the problem and will take responsibility for properly disposing of dead rats, so residents should inform us of any case.
‘We are actively working to identify and address all possible sources of the problem.
‘We have also engaged with local residents and informed Watford Council’s environmental health team. “We will continue to work with all parties to ensure the issue is resolved as quickly as possible.”
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