A mum has claimed her home has become inhabitable due to an infestation of bed bugs.
Samantha, 29, lives with her three young boys, aged 10, 8 and 6. One of her children had to visit their local GP after being bitten over 20 times in one night, reports Edinburgh Live.
Samantha has said she cannot sleep at night and feels let down by Edinburgh City Council after they failed to get rid of the bed bugs and refused to rehouse her in another property.
She said: “We went to the doctors on April 6 as we all had bites all over our bodies and I knew that something was not right.
“We were all sleeping when I found the first bed bug overnight on April 15, I felt it on my skin and later on my son’s neck. It was horrible, I can’t explain how it made me feel.
“They did their treatment but it did not seem to work. We went to the GP and were given cream for the bites but the problem continued. We decided to break all of the beds apart and found so many of them of all different sizes, so I decided to destroy all of the beds, throw out the mattresses and all of the bedding.
“We had pest control come out that same day to do the first treatment on April 17. They did their treatment but he told me that we had lots of bed bugs and that they are extremely hard to get rid of due to them hiding in plug sockets and in the wallpaper.
“I managed to capture one in a container before I rushed to the council office so that they could see we needed to be rehoused as the home is not safe for me and my family. But the housing manager told me that my home would be safe for us to go back to after four or five hours.”
Samantha says the bites became so bad they were visible to other children playing with her kids.
The issue has already cost her thousands of pounds due to having to buy new beds and laying new flooring but no solution has been found as of yet.
She added: “The housing manager asked me to remain in the property for the night until after the first treatment was done and to see if I could find any live ones. After the treatment had been completed we returned to the property but we still found live bed bugs.
“I decided that the best thing to do was to try to go into emergency temporary accommodation but they said they could not put me up until someone had been out to inspect the home. When a gentleman arrived he saw all of the destroyed furniture outside but he still commented on how nice our home was.
“He found that the home was inhabitable and organised for us to go into temporary accommodation. We had to travel to the other side of town and when we got there I was so shocked.
“The room stank of urine and one of the chairs has a pee stain on it. We were all out of breath from the stench in the air. There was no way we could stay there for the night so I sadly had to take them back to the house.
“The bugs continued to eat us all night, so after I dropped the boys at school, I went to the council again. She said they would not rehouse us and that we would have to stay in our bed bug ridden home.”
Samantha has also shelled out on countless pest control treatments but says this has had little affect on the problem.
“We have had some nights where the boys have been bitten over twenty times. We have had to go back to the doctor as one of my son's bites have become infected,” she said.
“I’ve tried continuously to fight to be rehoused by the council and have been reduced to tears because of this. They phoned me this morning (Friday June 2) to say that they would not be rehousing me.”
Councillor Jane Meagher said: “I sympathise greatly with this family and I understand the issue must be causing a lot of stress. We’re doing our best to support them and address the problem as quickly as possible.
“As I understand it, the treatment plan often requires multiple visits and can take more than four weeks. This is well underway, and our pest control team will be visiting again next week. Our housing officers will also continue to do all that they can to offer their support and have spoken with our tenant in person today.”
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