A MUM-of-two has said her flat is so infested with ants that insects burst out of cereal boxes and plug sockets – they even bite her children.
Ruth Archibald lives in temporary accommoation in Wandsworth, South London, along with her five-year-old twins Jonah and Prudent – and allegedly a colony of ants too.
The 23-year-old claims to have been plagued by the problem since the start of last year when she first noticed tiny brown ants a week after moving in.
Since then she said ants have poured out of tiny cracks in the walls and taken over the kitchen cupboard.
The insects are "everywhere", Ruth claimed, biting her little ones or surprising her at breakfast time.
The mum started keeping all her food in the fridge in a desperate attempt to control the creepy-crawlies, but she's had enough.
She told MyLondon about the infestation: "It's so infuriating, there's an ant everywhere we go…I'll be cooking in the kitchen and I'll see one come through a tiny crack…it just started to get worse and worse.
"At one point, it infested my entire food cupboard and I had to remove all the food. They come out of everything, even the plug sockets."
The mum-of-two is at a loss of what to do about the swarming creatures.
In fact, she's devastated as this is the third temporary accommodation where she said her family has had to face horrible living conditions.
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Six years ago, Ruth moved out of her family home where she shared a "jam packed" room with her sister and baby twins.
Centre Point, a homeless charity, provided Ruth with temporary accommodation in Streatham for her and her young kids.
But she said she soon discovered mice running up the walls of the property, through the bedsheets and even on her children.
Ruth even claimed that her twins kept falling ill from the mice's bacteria.
She said: "It was a really bad accommodation. I took it because I didn't have much choice at the time – I had nowhere else to stay. That place was infested with mice.
"They had people come in numerous times to see to it but the house had just gone to rot so that it couldn't be remedied anymore. They were in the walls, they were everywhere."
Centrepoint said that they sent out a pest control team to deal with the mice.
After this ordeal, Ruth moved to another temporary accommodation in Thornton Heath by Wandsworth Council which seemed far better at first – and pest-free.
We shouldn't be treated like this.
Yet she said the young family started to receive abuse from people who would hang around the block of flats at night.
Ruth said: "The home itself was fine but it was in a really bad area. Fights would break out every night, people would take drugs and be passed out in the morning.
"I'd come downstairs in the morning with my kids and people would be passed out on the stairs.
"It became personal because more and more started coming where we were living, they didn't even want to let us into the house anymore."
So after discovering ants in her most recent flat, Ruth is exasperated.
She said her five-year-olds have started asking her why they keep having to move house, but she struggles to answer.
The mum-of-two added: "I feel like the council just doesn't help. We shouldn't be treated like this. It sends my children crazy."
A spokesperson for Wandsworth council said: “We’re sorry to hear this tenant is experiencing problems. Our records show that our pest control team visited in March last year and that the tenant was advised to contact us again for further treatments if the problem recurred.
If there is a problem we’d like to try and resolve it for her as quickly as possible
"We haven’t heard from her since but are more than happy to return to carry out further treatments and will be contacting her to arrange this. If there is a problem we’d like to try and resolve it for her as quickly as possible.”
Meanwhile, Balbir Kaur Chatrik, director of policy at Centrepoint, says: “Whilst we are unable to comment on individual tenancies, our maintenance records show that pest control attended the property in November 2017 and April 2018, and a drain issue was attended to, but there are no records of damp problems.
“Centrepoint houses over 1,200 young people aged 16-25 who have been homeless or at risk every day across the country. The safety and wellbeing of those we support is of paramount importance to us, as is the condition of the properties we manage.
"We have robust complaint processes in place for all young people who live in our supported accommodation and take all complaints seriously.
“In recent years, we have further improved our property standards. In the last financial year alone we spent well over a £1 million on maintenance to ensure our hostels are the welcoming and well-maintained environments that the young people we support need to find a permanent home and a job.
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"During that period 78 per cent of repairs were completed on time. In addition 92 per cent of young people who lived in our supported accommodation said they felt safe or very safe at Centrepoint, and 92.4 per cent of young people we support moved on from Centrepoint positively.
“We continue to review our property standards and make improvements, so that we can deliver the best possible outcome for every young person we support.”
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