Fed-up family have been battling an infestation of rats for SEVEN years

A family have spoken of their “living hell” after battling an infestation of super rats for a staggering seven years.

Fed-up Alex Hayward, 40, wife Donna and three children have been fighting the army of rodents since moving into their home in 2005.

Alex says the plague is of “biblical proportions” and they have hundreds of rats scurrying across their floor boards.

He says the rodents leave ”mountains” of droppings and a foul stench at the home in Maidstone, Kent.

The “super rats” have managed to gnaw through any traps laid for them and learnt to avoid most poisons.

Alex says their numbers have grown so fast that every time when one dies “two seem to pop up in its place”

The infestation became so bad it caused Mr Hayward to sign off work with depression.

At its worst in November 2011 the family were forced to move into a caravan in their front garden.

Eldest daughter Easha, 19, even moved out because she couldn’t handle the trauma.

The Haywards house is owned by Golding Homes housing association, which the family claim has taken a shocking seven years to take the horrific situation seriously.

Housing bosses have now finally called in exterminators and temporarily moved the family out of the house after Mr Hayward stage a sit in protest at their head office.

Mr Hayward, a father-of-five, said: “It’s just beyond a joke a now. I’ve been arguing with Golding Homes for years and years and they have treated it serious.”

The housing trust repeatedly laid traps and put mesh caps across all the piping to try to keep the creature at bay between 2006 and 2011.

But the cunning rats bit their way out of the snares, then later learned to avoid them.

In 2011 a surge of rats burst thought the Haywards home causing the family to flee their house and move into a caravan in their yard.

Last week Mr Hayward staged a sit in protest at Golding Homes offices, in Aylesford, Kent after finding three more dead rats under the floor boards of his living room.

Jillie Smithie, Golding Homes director of operations, said: “We are working with Mr Hayward and his family to resolve this problem as quickly as possible.

“We have offered them a temporary home while we carry out the necessary investigations and remedial work to their property.”

The couple live with their children one-year-old Ruby, Daisy, nine, Jessica, 13, and MacCauley, 17.