A Leeds woman has slammed “rude” housing officers following a wasp infestation in her home. “Hundreds” of the insects swarmed into Emily Marshall’s terraced house last Thursday, September 29, as Leeds Live reports.
The mother-of-two is “livid” with Leeds City Council and claimed her family were “treated like nothing because we live in a council house in Seacroft”. Emily lives in a council house with her children, aged one and four, her partner Ryan Hemingway and his daughter.
The wasps were discovered upon returning from the school run on Thursday morning, frightening the care support worker. The 26-year-old also feared for her son, who has severe allergies.
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.”
She 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. Early signs of the infestation could be heard as they could “hear buzzing” underneath the bath panel days before they made their presence known.
As a result, the young family were forced to seal off the room, including lining the bathroom door with towels. With Ryan working as a jetting technician in the sewage for Yorkshire Water, he had to get a wash at a friend’s before coming home while 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 the family was dealing with all these difficulties, Emily claimed the whole situation was made even worse by her treatment from council housing officers.
The mother was initially told they would have to wait four weeks for pest control to attend and deal with the situation. That would have left the quartet without access to a bathroom for almost an entire month.
“They basically washed their hands of us and said it’s not their responsibility,” Emily continued. “They were saying 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 to 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.”
Eventually, Emily was told the pest control team would be sent out after days of worrying. However, she remains wholly unhappy with how the situation was initially handled.
A spokesperson for Leeds City Council said on Friday: “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.”
