A despairing mother is "disgusted" with Sutton Council, after her children have been left covered in blisters by a bed bug infestation.

The plague has become so bad that she has had to send her children some 200 miles away to live with their father to protect them from being bitten.

Single-mum Lucy Perry moved her family into Collingwood Road, Sutton, in January, only to find the mattresses and sofa were crawling with the blood-sucking insects.

The 24-year-old said she called Sutton Council’s pest control team five days later, which has responded by fumigating the flat on three separate occasions.

However Ms Perry, who has two young sons, says her children are now living with their dad in Cornwall on a temporary basis, because their beds are still host to the bugs.

She said: "It feels terrible. The children want to move house and have been crying. 

"Their school phoned social services because they were covered in blisters.

"(The insects) aren’t small, they are absolutely huge."

She said pest control officers were last sent to her home on Tuesday, January 17. 

The mother-of-two, who works as a domiciliary carer, has had to take time off work every time the exterminators have visited her home. 

Her six-year-old son Tyler and her three-year-old boy Sean have had sleeping problems because of the infestation.

The bugs live in cracks and crevices around beds and come out at night to suck human blood.

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Although the creatures are seen as unpleasant, the NHS said they are not known to transmit diseases.

A Sutton Council spokesperson commented: "We have worked with Lucy since the infestation began to protect her health and the health of her children.

"We are continuing to work with her to resolve this as quickly as possible as we take our responsibility for public health with the utmost seriousness. 

"There have been no complaints of bed bugs by any other tenants in the building and we are investigating what the source of the outbreak was."

Ms Perry continued: "I don’t tell my children what they are, I just say they are like little fleas. 

"I don’t tell them that they suck their blood or anything like that.

"I am so disgusted with the council. 

"It’s been roughly three weeks since I rang them, they have been out two times, but I am still in this mess.

"The council has said they can move me to a B&B but that will be outside of the borough.

"I have complained to the council, because I want to stay here, but I want them to get rid of the bugs."