A DEAD rat lay rotting on a woman’s driveway for almost a week after she asked council pest control workers to dispose of it.

Tracey Frain, aged 37, of Riverside Road, Radcliffe, had put a bucket over the rodent’s corpse until a member of Bury Council’s pest control department could collect it.

Several days after complaining, a worker finally came to take the rat away, only to leave it where it was because no one was in the house at the time.

Mrs Frain was told that council staff were “not authorised” to enter her property while she was not there, despite her making repeated phone calls asking them to do it.

The rat was finally collected the next day, September 8, six days after she said she first reported it.

Mrs Frain said: “I can’t believe the service that they provide.

“The woman I spoke to treated me as if it wasn’t important.

“It’s just horrible that you’ve got this vermin so close to your property.

“There are children around, and cats and dogs, and you know what might happen.

“To have something like that there for so long, which carries a lot of diseases, it’s not nice.

“I’m disgusted.”

A council spokesman said their records indicated Mrs Frain reported the dead rat on September 3, and a pest control officer made an appointment to visit her house at the earliest possible opportunity.

He said: “No one was at home when we called, and the officer did not know that the rat was under a bucket on the drive.

“This was due to a breakdown in communication within the council, for which we apologise.

“However, we did return the following day and disposed of the rat.”

The spokesman added: “Pest control officers do not usually visit someone’s home to remove a dead animal, but will attend if live rodents need controlling.”