Rats have made the lives of a north Norfolk couple “absolute hell”, scurrying around their luxury seaside apartment which they claim is “unsuitable for human residence”.
Joseph Jeffrey and his partner Shauna Oregan moved into their flat at Burlington Place, Sheringham – the former Burlington Hotel – in November last year.
They have been living with rats ever since and claim to have found them crawling around their home, gnawing at their doors and listening to them scratching from inside the walls in the night.
The couple pay £1,400 a month in rent for the two-bedroom apartment on The Esplanade. They say that despite reporting the issue to their landlord, Estateducation, nothing has been done to resolve their rodent nightmare.
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“I was staying away in Norwich one night and I had a phone call from Shauna at 3.30am to say there was a rat running around the bedroom she was sleeping in,” Mr Jeffrey said.
“She had to lock herself in the spare room.
“We called out an exterminator who confirmed there were rats in the property. He set a trap and caught the rat.
“We alerted the landlord and told them there is an issue with rats around the building. There are disconnected waste pipes around the back of the building, which the rats keep coming up and down.
“You can physically see them running up the pipes and in the communal bin area.
“They leave scratch marks on the drains they’ve been coming up.”
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Mr Jeffrey and Miss Oregan are leaving the property when their tenancy agreement ends next month.
The couple say they have tried to contact Estateducation - the Norwich-based property firm which developed Burlington Place.
The company was contacted by this newspaper about the claims but declined to comment.
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