A family forced to live with a big rat problem in a Newfoundland and Labrador housing unit for two months has been moved to another home.
Mary Taylor has been advocating on behalf of the family and says the rats were so bad that the family was confined to one room.
Despite an exterminator not being able to control the problem, she says NL Housing would not call it an infestation.
Taylor says the family had to live with the vermin climbing on the counters, in the cupboards and on the table. She says there was blood splatter from rats that weren’t being caught in the traps properly. The kids were witnessing the injured rats walking across the floor.
Taylor says they couldn’t eat in their own kitchen and their three-year-old was confined to a playpen 24/7 as it wasn’t safe. To Taylor, the toddler was being deprived as he wasn’t able to do what a normal three-year-old is supposed to do.
The family had no choice but to give up their pets under the direction of NL Housing and each family member was in a different place outside the home as they couldn’t continue to live in the unit.
Taylor says she thinks pressure from the media and social media helped to get NL Housing to place the family in another unit.
