A YORK woman who says her property is overrun with rats has hit out at the city council, after it refused to send staff in to help tackle the problem.

Coralene Smith, who lives at a travellers site at Clifton, said there was a serious rodent problem in her caravan, and she believed they were nesting in her cooker.

She has been waiting four months for City of York Council workers to come and remove her kitchen units, to identify where the rats are coming from.

The council has refused, saying the animals are a danger to its employees because of the risk of contracting a serious rat-carried illness.

It says it cannot send staff in to replace the units until the rats have been killed.

But Ms Smith today accused the council of not knowing what it was doing.

She said the units needed to be replaced first, so the source of the problem can be identified.

Otherwise, she said, the rats would keep coming back.

Ms Smith said: "Basically one hand does not know what the other hand is doing at the council.

"When I first reported it, environmental health came and just put some rat poison down.

"They came down again a couple of months after that, to put new units in, but they said they didn't have the right units, so couldn't start.

"Then one of the council managers said they could not send council staff in, because it was a health and safety issue."

She said: "You need to get the units out first, so you can see where the rats are coming from. But they say they are waiting for Rentokil.

"They do not know what they are doing."

Ms Smith has had to cook at a friend's house for weeks, such is the extent of the problem in her kitchen.

She said there are also rats all over the rest of the caravan site.

Ms Smith said her children were afraid to play outside, because of dead maggot-infested rodents in the play area.

A City of York Council spokeswoman said: "Ms Smith notified the housing team of the rat problem some time ago and, realising the extent of the problem, they called out Rentokil.

"Ms Smith's kitchen units were due to be replaced, but due to the serious health and safety concerns about workers contracting Weil's Disease from working in rat-infested areas, we are not able to send anyone in until the problem is cleared up."

Updated: 11:12 Tuesday, August 30, 2005