Flatmates plagued with flies and ‘stench of death’ as rats rotted in walls

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Rory Baird and his pals say they became engaged in a real-life cat and mouse game against the “clever rats” at their home in Headingley, Leeds.  He says they tried every trick in the book to rid the property of the rodents but, after no success, he settled on his landlord’s plan to trap the rats inside the walls and starve them.

LeedsLive reports how Mr Baird, who shared his home with four other friends but no-longer lives at the property, said the rat problems began from the very first day they moved in

He said: “We had a problem. You could see and hear them running across the kitchen floor and even making it upstairs to the living room.

“I had to kill one myself. I have a video of a second one with its leg caught in the trap, but it got away in the removal process.

“The landlord’s original suggestion was to block up the entry points using iron wool and some plaster. I originally said no, we should use traps, because this is better than having dead rats decaying in the wall cavities.”

Mr Baird said the traps plan failed as the rats soon began avoiding them. Out of desperation, he was forced to close the holes and starve the rats.

He said the rats then died, and decayed, causing the unbearable stench.

He said: “Once they figured out the traps, we had to resort to the original plan – blocking up the walls. It had the predicted effect.

“The kitchen absolutely stank, and a plague of flies descended upon it. The problem eventually cleared itself up, but it was a gross couple of weeks.

“The smell was atrocious – pardon my graphic description but it was genuinely the stench of death.”

At the height of the rodent problem, Rory Baird and his friends, who were frustrated at help not arriving soon enough, made a help sign using the dead flies they had caught. He said: “…at the end of the day it just didn’t get sorted quickly enough.

“The help sign was probably a combination of an abundance of flies, a mild sense of humour, and a genuine plea for aid. Honestly, there were so many flies I think we could have used them to write out a formal complaint to the environmental health department.”

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