"It seems like everyone is pulling together, apart from the council": Pest control services have been temporarily postponed in Eastleigh.

One Eastleigh resident has been left outraged after the council declined to send out pest control to her elderly mother who has recently found a rat nest underneath the decking of her home on Duddon Close in West End.

The infestation began last week and has been getting "progressively worse", but due to the coronavirus outbreak, Eastleigh Borough Council will not send anyone to deal with the infestation, in a bid to comply with social distancing measures.

But Helen Hamblen believes that sending one person out to deal with the pests would still follow the governments guidelines and would make her mother's time in self isolation more manageable.

She said: "My mum is a vulnerable woman so is self isolating but because of this rat problem that seems to be getting progressively worse, it means she can't get some fresh air in her garden, which makes it harder.

"The council have said that they have suspended the service to protect their workers and their families, but what would be the problem with sending one person to deal with it on his own?

"They have now stopped food waste collection too so what if this gets worse? They can't just stop providing these services, it's wrong. It seems like everyone is pulling together, apart from the council."

Helen has now hired a private pest control company to deal with the problem, so that her mother can use the garden during this period of self isolation.

An Eastleigh Borough Council spokesperson has defended the decision, saying the council is complying with guidelines, and that the possibility of providing residents pest control kits to handle the problem themselves is being explored.

They said: "The Council’s pest control service has been paused during the coronavirus lockdown for the safety of both residents and our operatives. To comply with the government’s measures on social distancing it would be inappropriate for our operatives to enter the properties of vulnerable residents; our staff have therefore been redeployed to other key service areas.

"We are currently exploring making pest control kits available that residents can use themselves - and we’ll provide more details on this over the next couple of days."