The mother has told the Herald when the family moved into the home they found it was in a state of disrepair. Soon after they began having furry visitors. 

The woman said they had reported the problem to the Housing Executive (HE), who sent out pest controllers a week later. They have had only two visits from pest control since while in the meantime the family, who have a one-year-old child, have caught 17 mice themselves.

The woman said she was now too embarrassed to take people into her home and was worried for her child. 

“I am terrified of mice too. I’m just a bag of nerves,” she said. 

Local Cllr Thomas O’Reilly has been working with the family on the issue, and was with them when they met with HE representatives at the home last week. 

“In 2019 to have mice in your house, from October last year to this present day, it is totally unacceptable,” he said. “I expressed my deep concern to the HE representative who was out and have spoken to the manager about this as well. Basically the HE need to do better.” 

A spokesman for the HE told the Herald they had sent out a pest controller to lay traps at the home twice when the family reported the problem in October, but had not had any further reports from them until January 2nd. 

“Since then we have been working hard with pest control specialists to find a solution to this ongoing problem,” they said. “We want to reassure [the family] we are doing everything we can to resolve this matter.”