Mother living in rat infested Cork flat: 'I'm crying myself to sleep' 

A Cork City Council tenant is crying herself to sleep in a rat-infested flat knowing that her family cannot be together for Christmas.

More than 10 years ago, when Dorothy* and her four young children moved into her home in one of the dilapidated council flats in Togher, she says she was told by a housing officer she would be there for “24 months, max”.

The flats date back more than 50 years and were built — under the then city architect, Eamon O’Byrne — to the same three-storey maisonette design as the condemned and soon-to-be demolished Noonan’s Rd flats.

Dorothy and her children have always lived in freezing conditions, with black mould on the windowsills and damp on the walls, but it is only in the last year that the flat has become infested with rats. 

Droppings

“They swim up through the toilet bowl — you can see the scratches they make inside the bowl — and they get in through the airing cupboard. You can see their droppings on the floor, and you can hear them in the ceilings,” she said.

“The council have sent pest control I don’t know how many times over the past year, but the rats are still getting in.

In photographs seen by The Echo, a dead rat, an estimated foot-long from nose to tail, lies dead on the draining board by the sink.

“I had to fight that one. He was trying to lift a mug off the draining board,” Dorothy said.

Another dead rat is photographed stuck to an adhesive board left on the floor by pest control.

“I had to put a shoe over that one until he died,” Dorothy said.

 “Pest control pulled all my bedding out of the airing cupboard and it had to be thrown out. You can see the dropping inside the cupboard; they’re all fresh.”

Rats running around

Dorothy said she cannot put out her Christmas tree because it’s on top of a press in a bedroom where she hears rats running around and which she dare not enter.

“I’m crying myself to sleep at night, if I can go asleep, because I can’t have my family together for Christmas here,” Dorothy said.

“One of my daughters stays with me, and her skin is covered in a rash caused by the rats going on the bedclothes.”

Her eldest child lives independently, while the two youngest children stay with relatives due to the infestation.

“I’m supposed to be down for a transfer, but I’ve heard nothing and nobody in the council will talk to me,” she said.

Under the terms of the council’s tenant handbook, tenants are responsible for addressing infestations in their homes, but Dorothy and her neighbours say the rats are coming through the attics and walls from other properties.

“One of the gardens is overgrown and the rats are breeding in there, and we’re all being punished for it,” she said.

Disgrace

Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire, Sinn Féin TD for Cork South Central, said the council’s treatment of its tenant was “a disgrace”, and that he had repeatedly flagged Dorothy’s situation.

“We have had multiple structural issues in this flat, in common with other flats in the area, and we now have this issue in relation to rodents,” Mr Ó Laoghaire said.

“Absolutely nobody would want to have rodents in their home, the implications it has for health, for welfare. You wouldn’t accept it from any landlord, and it shouldn’t be acceptable from the city council.

“We’re very frustrated that this issue hasn’t been resolved, after weeks of flagging it. We’ve asked the council to look at temporary emergency accommodation, and, in my view, that’s the least that should be done for a tenant in this situation.”

Injustice

Local housing activist William O’Brien said the situation was “nothing short of a social injustice”.

“In 2025, no family should feel abandoned in their own home, yet that is exactly what is happening,” Mr O’Brien said.

“They cannot even cook a meal, because rodents have taken over, and their kitchen is too dangerous to use.

“In a wealthy, modern state, this is not just unacceptable; it is a moral failure. This is not a crisis of resources. This is a crisis of political will.”

A spokesperson for Cork City Council said it is currently “addressing rodent activity” in the Togher flats “through a multidisciplinary approach”.

“This includes pest-control provision through a specialist treatment contractor, addressing of dumping, and working to address overgrowth in gardens,” they said.

*Not her real name.