A Leeds man who was engaged in a real-life cat and mouse game with 'clever rats' was forced to endure a strong stench of dead decaying rodents in his wall cavity - and battle flies the smell attracted.
Rory Baird, who lived on Manor Drive in Headingley says he tried every single trick in the book to rid his house of rats, before settling on his landlord's plan to trap the rats inside the walls and starve them. Mr Baird, who shared his home with four other friends, said his problems with rodents began from the very first day they moved in.
Mr Baird said: "We had a problem in my last house, on Manor Drive. You could see and hear them running across the kitchen floor and even making it upstairs to the living room. I told the landlord and we set some traps, although they were only mouse traps so didn't kill the animal.
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"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."
But Mr Baird says his plan backfired as the 'clever' rats soon figured the mouse traps out and began avoiding them. He says out of desperation he was forced to close the holes and starve the rats.
And Mr Baird's predictions immediately came true. The rats died, and decayed, causing an unbearable stench.
He said: "Once they figured out the traps, we had to resort to his 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."
And at the height of the rodent plus stink problem, Rory Baird and his friends, who were frustrated at help not arriving soon enough concocted a plan and 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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