A couple has taken to recording the sound of squeaking rats which are chewing their way through their home in a bid to get the landlord and council to take action.

Eleonora Nicoletti, who lives in a flat next to Epsom Library in the Ebbisham Centre, said she and her partner feel "helpless and devastated" by the sleepless nights the rats are causing them.

She said: "The rats come from an opening in the unmaintained roof where they apparently found a perfect shelter under the bushes that have grown within stockpiles of bird excrements.

"Every night the rats penetrate the wall and the ceiling just above our heads and they start moving, squeaking and chewing restlessly."

Ms Nicoletti said they have contacted Epsom Council and their landlord, to no avail, and have paid for a pest control company to get rid of the rodents but this has not worked either.

Since this article was published, Ms Nicoletti told the Epsom Guardian that the couple's landlord has been in touch and said they are looking into the problem. She said Epsom Council has also been in touch.

But Ms Nicoletti said the pest control company which had visited the flat said "it could be pigeons instead of rats or both".