A Leeds woman living in a council house has slammed “rude” housing officers after “hundreds” of wasps swarmed into her home.
Mother-of-two Emily Marshall, 26, is “livid” with Leeds City Council and has claimed her family were “treated like nothing because we live in a council house in Seacroft”. Emily lives in a terraced house with her children, one and four, her partner Ryan Hemingway and his daughter.
Emily discovered the wasps after coming back from the school run on Thursday morning, September 29. The care support worker went into panic mode, fearing for her son who has severe allergies.
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Emily said: “I was absolutely terrified. I’m really scared of wasps and my son has quite severe allergies and we’re not sure if he’s actually allergic to any bee stings or anything like that.
"So I just didn’t know what to do because there were so many, hundreds of them. I was just scared and anxious.”
The 26-year-old believes the wasps burrowed in through a “big hole” in the back of the house where a waste pipe had been removed but not filled in. Days prior to the infestation, they could “hear buzzing” underneath the bath panel.
The infestation caused a lot of difficulties for the young family. They had to seal off the room, which included lining the bathroom door with towels.
Ryan works in the sewage for Yorkshire Water as a jetting technician, so had to get a wash at a friend’s before coming home, and neither parent could have a wash the following day. Emily’s four-year-old daughter has issues “wetting the bed”, so needed to be cleaned up the following morning.
While this was all going, Emily says her treatment from council housing officers made the whole situation much worse. She was initially told they would have to wait four weeks for pest control to attend, which would mean the family would be without access to a bathroom for all that time.
Emily said: “They basically washed their hands of us and said it’s not their responsibility.
“They were making they’ve done everything they should be doing by me not having to pay for pest control. But the whole reason there were wasps was because the house is in disrepair, that’s their responsibility.
“They were just very rude, I kept asking to be put through a manager and they refused. That’s not good enough, my children have had to stay out and I’ve been anxious about the hundreds of wasps in my bathroom.
“I’m absolutely livid, I suffer quite badly with anxiety and depression anyway. So having to ring them over the phone with this whole carry on while I have two kids to look after, I’m angry and upset. I feel like we get treated like nothing because we live in a council house in Seacroft. We all get tarred with the same brush, it’s not acceptable.”
After a day of worrying, Emily said she eventually was told the pest control team would be sent out but she remains unhappy with how she was initially treated.
A spokesperson for Leeds City Council said: “We were informed about an issue with wasps in the bathroom of this property yesterday [Thursday] and have sent out a pest control team today to deal with the problem.
“It seems that the wasps got into the bathroom via a hole in a wall that until now had gone undiscovered, and we will be returning to block up the hole as soon as possible.
“The council strives to always deal with enquiries and complaints in a polite, considerate and timely fashion, and we welcome feedback from customers so we can address any specific concerns they might have.
“We would, of course, be happy to talk with Ms Marshall about any other issues she is having with her property and work out an appropriate plan of action.”
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