Swindon mum spots rat scurrying across garden after bins not collected

Nuzhat Shakaib has stopped her young children from playing in the back garden due to concerns about the mess around her waste disposal.

The 41-year-old was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, chronic pain, muscle fatigue, and muscle weakness after catching Covid twice in six months during the pandemic.

The uncollected bins have resulted in maggots and a rat being sighted (Image: Newsquest)

This has had major long-lasting effects on her day-to-day life and stopped her from working.

Even small amounts of physical exertion prove to be exhausting, so Nuzhat cannot move the full bins and recycling boxes along the path next to her house to the front kerb, where they can be collected, without feeling completely drained.

To cope with this, she requested the assisted bin collection service from Swindon Borough Council last August – but Nuzhat worries that this keeps being forgotten about because several bin days have passed without the rubbish being picked up.

Her children are not allowed to play in the back garden due to the rats and mess (Image: From public)

She told the Adver: “We are in the middle of a heatwave, this is unacceptable.

“I’ve had a rat come into the garden and saw evidence of maggots in the bin when I opened the lid last week, I daren’t open it again.

“My children can’t enjoy being out in the garden in the sunshine because I don’t think it’s safe for them with the mess.

“When it happened before, I spoke to one of the bin men and they said ‘we know who you are now, so we won’t miss it again’ – then it happened again.

“The service is supposed to help me but it’s just causing more stress because this happens at least once a month.”

Nuzhat has expressed her frustration with the local authority and cancelled her direct debit until the problem is resolved.

A Swindon Borough Council spokesman said: “We carry out a thousand assisted collections each day as part of our daily rounds and, while we endeavour to pick up everyone’s waste, there are occasions where we unfortunately miss some homes.

“For some reason, this assisted collection has been missed off the Badbury Park route and we are looking into the reasons why this was the case. We visited Mrs Shakaib earlier this week to apologise for the inconvenience we have caused and we have spoken to our crews to make sure this does not happen again.

“All the waste has now been collected.”