Becky Fuller says her family's lives are being made a misery by rats in their home at Warren Avenue

Desperate Becky Fuller says she and her family are being kept awake at night by constant gnawing and scratching from the rodents in skirting boards and in the loft of their council home.

They say they have even found the dead carcass of rats in the roof and foul smelling droppings littered under the floorboards.

The problem is so bad that they claim flies regularly swarm the house feasting off the rodent’s litter and dead bodies.

Video footage recorded by her husband Steve shows the body of a rat nestled in insulation in the loft.

The family say they have applied for the council to move from their home in Warren Avenue, Southampton in but the authority does not deem their case is serious enough for re-homing.

A dead rat the Fullers found at their home

Environmental health officers to will be sent to investigate the problem, but a date has not been set.

Meanwhile her young sons Riley, seven, and Bradley, 10, regularly sleep downstairs on the sofa because they are too scared to sleep in their rooms.

Becky, 28, said: “You can hear them scratching all through the day and at night.

“It is so loud it sounds like there are grown men up there.

“The boys are petrified and don’t like to sleep in their rooms because they are scared.

“I don’t feel comfortable or safe in the property and I want to be moved out.

She initially noticed the problem when they first moved in last April when |||the family dog began scratching at the skirting boards.

She has applied poison in the garden and in the drains but has been unable to eradicate the problem.

But that a previous tenant had informed her about problems from as early as 2004.

She added: “They are vermin – it’s disgusting and disgraceful.

“My worst fear is that they are going to chew through the wall into the bedrooms and front room.”

A council spokeswoman said: “We can resolve most rat problems in a straightforward way, however should this not be the case, we seek to implement additional measures until the problem is eradicated.”