A MUM claims giant rats killed her DOG after the vermin were attracted to her garden by her nightmare neighbours dumping trash outside.

Nicola Green said hordes of the creatures are terrorising her family, with her children unable to play outside and rodents beginning to infest the house.

Nicola, 34, first noticed a rat “poke its head out” from under her fence in November last year, after neighbours dumped mountains of trash outside their homes in Ollerton, Notts.

She said the rats have taken over her garden too and are terrorising all the surrounding homes – chewing through sheds and eating property.

The care worker even believes the bacteria-carrying rats were the cause of her 14-year-old Jack Russell Jess' kidney failure, which led to her needing to be euthanised.

Nicola said: "They've always had stuff scattered about the garden.

"It started as them just tossing the odd can out on the garden but this last year it built up to that bad.

"They were chucking out everything – food, household waste, used sanitary towels – just anything you would put in a bin but they were just chucking it all in the back garden.”

She said at one point binmen “just stopped” taking them as recycling was mixed with household waste and plastic bags.

She added: “My dog would dig near the fence and I would have to pull her away.

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"The next thing I was out in the garden and a rat poked its head out through a hole under the fence and I just felt sick. I was in shock.

"At first they were just in that garden, then they started coming into mine and now they're in everyone's gardens and sheds.”

The growing rat population quickly swarmed their gardens as well, leaving Nicola's children, Leighton Green, 16, and Harry Green, eight, unable to use their own garden.

Horrifying footage shows rats crawling around piles of trash bags and larger junk items – as one large rodent even relaxes on an abandoned mattress.

Nicola has since made numerous complaints to the landlord and environmental health, who she says failed to act for almost four months, until she provided video evidence of the rodents.

The council department were then forced to threaten the landlord with a fine if the waste wasn't cleared after the tenant repeatedly failed to clear the garden.

Last week, on Friday 25 February, the landlord finally cleared the mess – but Nicola says the rats haven't been dealt with, and are still running riot in gardens across the neighbourhood.

And both Platform Housing association and Newark and Sherwood District Council advised the tenants to report the issue to the other, claiming the responsibility lies with the other party, she said.

Despite several attempts from neighbours knocking at the house, Nicola says there was never an answer at the door for them to confront the couple about the issue.

Nicola said: "They've just got no self respect at all. If that's what the garden is like then I can only imagine what the inside of the house is like.

"The house is only four years old, and they're really lovely houses, but it's just been trashed.

"On new years eve we had to have our family dog put to sleep because she had kidney failure.

"She became really poorly about six weeks before and I think it's because of the rats carrying diseases, so it's made me so angry to think that it led to that.

"It all made me want to move house. My last resort before that would've been to stop paying rent until it was sorted – a few of us neighbours discussed that."

A spokesperson for Platform Housing said: "We are sorry to hear of this issue in Ollerton; ultimately, customers' enclosed gardens are their own responsibility.

"Any issues should always be reported to the local authority who will send out pest control to survey the area and take action appropriately."

A spokesperson for Newark and Sherwood District Council said: "The property is owned by a private housing association and we're working with them, the tenant and the complainant to resolve the issue.

"We have been made aware of the rat infestation and we’ve asked the housing association to look into it.

"The responsibility lies with them but we do have powers to ensure they resolve the issue."

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