A Scots mum has accused her local council of ignoring her pleas after they refused to move her family from a house infested with bed bugs. Samantha, 29, from Edinburgh, has said that the insects are making her and her sons aged 10, eight and six, life a living hell.
The mum claims that she has even had to take one of her sons to the local GP after a bite became infected. The problem has gotten so bad that she says that another of her sons was bitten 20 times in a night and that the bites have become noticeable at school.
Samantha has become frustrated with Edinburgh City Council who she says has failed to eradicate the bed bugs and refuse to rehouse her. She told Edinburgh Live: "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,” the single mum said.
“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 claims that her pleas to move to another home have fallen on deaf ears. She claims that the stress of the pests has caused her to lose sleep as she watches over the kids as they sleep.
Samantha said she spent thousands of pounds improving their home, from buying new beds to laying new flooring. Yet all the work has been undermined by the infestation.
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.”
Desperate Samantha has now spent her own money on countless pest control treatments but to no avail. She said she continued to lose sleep and is still finding large bed bugs in their home.
“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.”
Bed bugs need multiple treatments to be eradicated with each one taking up to six weeks while council tenants remain in the home while work is ongoing - for fear of spreading the problem elsewhere. The pests can also return if carried from another property.
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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