Residents at an elderly people’s accommodation say that they wake up worried they will find rats in their living room after battling an infestation for two years.

Allan Tideswell, aged 72, and his 67-year-old wife Kim, say that they’ve been dealing with the pest problem since they moved into Blackwell Court back in 2023.

The site, which is near to Park Hill and managed by Sheffield City Council, offers a number of apartments aimed at retirees, with Allan and Kim explaining that many of the residents are elderly and disabled.

And yet they claim they have not been able to receive an adequate response to their ongoing rodent issues and reached out to The Star in the hope of action.

Alan Tideswell says that residents of an elderly person's housing complex worry that they will wake up to find rats in their living room or kitchen as they've spent years tackling the problem. | Submit

placeholder image — Alan Tideswell says that residents of an elderly person's housing complex worry that they will wake up to find rats in their living room or kitchen as they've spent years tackling the problem. | Submit

“It’s alright for them (council workers), they get to go back to their own homes, but it’s us that have to live with it,” Kim told The Star.

“We’ve got neighbours who are frightened to death, they’re sat up awake at 3am. We can hear scratching in the bedroom while we try to sleep.

“You wake up in the morning expecting to see a rat on the sofa with a knife and fork in its hands asking ‘where have you been?’

“It feels like we’re living in Ratatouille.”

In the past they have had rats hide in their TV stand and believe that the creatures are getting into their home through a hole under the kitchen cabinets which they discovered when having a new washing machine fitted.

Over the years, the couple have found their own solutions - sealing the hole in the kitchen the best they could, applying poison in the back garden and installing a mesh door after they had a rat run into their home while they were trying to let the breeze in during a hot summer day.

Just this week, after The Star reached out to the council, an environment officer visited the area and found a dead rat inside an outdoor cupboard.

Boxes and poison have been placed, however Allan feels that the source of the problem - which he claims are overgrowing bushes and a fruit tree in the complex’s central courtyard - are what need to be sorted.

He’s reached out to the council on a number of occasions and even been liaising with MP Louise Haigh to search for a solution.

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The council confirmed to The Star that the site’s management team are ‘aware of the ongoing issue with rats’ and are working with partners on how to improve matters quickly.

They have also liaised with tenants about not feeding wild animals or putting out food on the ground.

“We shouldn’t be living in this situation,” Allan added.

“We’re retired people and we shouldn’t be wondering ever morning if there’s going to be a rat in the living room or kitchen.”