Rats have left a pensioner in the dark for three months.

And Lionel Peters, a Kirklees Neighbourhood Housing tenant who lives on Miln Road in Birkby, said that the social housing provider has failed to resolve the problem, despite him first reporting it in mid September.

Retired Mr Peters, 75, has been struggling to get around his house safely since the ceiling lights in all four rooms suddenly went out.

Housing officials, who visited the house in September, said rats had chewed through cables in his loft.

He has had to make do with using only one lamp and a hallway light to try and get around in the decreasing winter light.

“It’s disgusting”, he said.

“I could hear the rats running around above me.

“I don’t like to cause a fuss and just want to live in peace but I feel I’ve been badly let down by KNH.

Lionel Peters is still waiting for KNH to fix his lighting
Lionel Peters is still waiting for KNH to fix his lighting

“It’s quite unsafe for me to not have working lights when I’m moving around and I’m also worried about the effect of any more damage happening to the wires because of the rats, it could start a fire. It’s made me want to move house even more”.

His friend, who did not want to be named, said she had contacted KNH “numerous” times on behalf of Mr Peters.

“I first contacted them for Lionel in September.

“They came out, had a look in the loft and found rat droppings so they put down some poison.

“Staff came back a couple of weeks later and said that the rats had been killed but that they couldn’t sort out the electrics because it was too big a job.

“I was ringing them all the time but felt like I was just being passed from pillar to post.

Rats chewed through cables in the loft (stock image)
Rats chewed through cables in the loft (stock image)

“They came back in October and then again last week and decided to put more poison down because rats had returned.

“But we have no idea if or when they will repair the cables”.

A spokeswoman for KNH apologised for the long delay in fixing the lighting but could not say when engineers would be able to fix the problem.

She said: “We’re very sorry that we haven’t been able to get Mr Peters’ ceiling lights repaired yet.

READ MORE:

READ MORE:

“All the other electrics are working, but we had arranged to have the flat completely rewired some time ago;.

“Unfortunately, a number of issues relating to rats and the drain system have meant that it’s a much more complex job than first thought so the electricians have not been able to do the work yet.

“We are working with the relevant services to get these issues sorted out, but in the meantime, we have arranged a temporary fix and we apologise again to Mr Peters for the delay in getting the lights repaired”.