“Only packaged food such as sandwiches is available.”

Claire Johnson (43) has spent three of the last five nights sleeping in her Vauxhall Zafira in New England following a rat infestation and water leaks at her Accent Nene home in Ulverston Close, Paston. Mrs Johnson moved out of the housing association property at the start of December after a relative spotted a rat in the semi-detached house. It came after an incident in mid-November when a kitchen leak was traced back to a rat-chewed water pipe. Her four-year-old son has autism and she claims she was advised by his paediatrician that he would be at “considerable risk” of picking up diseases if he remained in the house as he constantly picks objects up and puts them in his mouth and has no sense of danger. The freelance writer for two US magazines admits that she missed two appointments with Accent Nene before Christmas to tackle the issue – the first due to a family funeral and the second due to her four-year-old son being admitted to hospital with a stomach bug. However, she claims that Accent Nene has delayed tackling the problem since a second leak, which she believes was caused by rats gnawing pipes, caused extensive damage to her living room on January 3. This has meant she has spent the intervening weeks largely at hotels and relying on takeaway meals, which has now exhausted her savings of more than £1,200 – including cash put aside for her 16-year-old son’s college education. Now she is resorting to sleep in her car together with her 16-year-old son, while her youngest child is staying with family where there is room for others. She is critical of Accent Nene for refusing the request she made on January 3 for temporary accommodation after the second leak and also says she was told she would not qualify for support from Peterborough City Council as she is not technically homeless. She said: “I feel like the system has totally failed me. I have never felt so low in my life because I feel that I’m failing my children.” On January 4, a member of the pest control team at Peterborough City Council visited the property to carry out initial baiting and removal of dead rats. Following another visit on January 23, Accent Nene has told Mrs Johnson that the twin issues of the rats and subsequent flooding has been resolved and the property is now habitable – an opinion that she strongly disputes. She said: “I was livid because the house is uninhabitable. It’s disgusting. There are rat droppings everywhere. The smell is horrendous.” Accent Nene has arranged to pay for hotel accommodation for her family for two nights while work to remove “unwanted items” from the home and garden takes place. She hopes to return to the property soon but is keen to see the same treatment she has received does not happen to others. She said: “Other people have got rat problems. I’m told you are never more than 10 metres from a rat, so there must be other people who have got disabled children who are going to be in the same situation.”

AN Accent Nene spokeswoman said: “Our senior surveyor and the housing officer visited Mrs Johnson on January 6 to inspect the damage. “It is the view of the pest control officer that there is no risk to Mrs Johnson or her family in coming back to reside at the property while treatment works continue. “The senior surveyor and housing officer took a number of photographs and believe the property is habitable. Therefore we are not able to provide temporary accommodation.” She added they are keen to support her in resolving all her issues. A Peterborough City Council spokesman said Mrs Johnson was provided with a out-of-hours contact number if she became homeless but had no further record of contact from her.

A CHINESE restaurant which packs in hundreds of hungry Greenwich diners every night has been handed a record fine and branded “a disaster waiting to happen”. Owners of the Peninsula Restaurant in Bugsby’s Way were fined £54,000 and banned from running restaurants in the future after admitting 18 breaches of food hygiene regulations. The restaurant was closed following a visit last April when environmental health officers found mouse droppings amongst packets of food, next to plates and inside a roll of cling film in the kitchen. Thick grease lined the floor beneath the cooking range, while vegetables had been left to rot on the floor of the walk-in fridge. No paper towels at hand basins meant it was difficult for kitchen staff to maintain good standards of personal hygiene, Greenwich Council said.

Despite being closed, in accordance with food laws, the council had to let the business reopen after eight days once the kitchen was cleaned and the original mouse infestation treated. It is the second time the venue, which was recently handed a four-star review by Time Out magazine, has been prosecuted in two years. Back in February 2010 the owners were fined £13,500 after similar breaches. At Woolwich Crown Court on

January 19, Judge Charles Byers told restaurant owners Crestdane, the kitchen was in a “disgraceful state” and the conditions were a “disaster waiting to happen.”

Greenwich cabinet member for community safety and environment Councillor Maureen O’Mara said: “The hygiene conditions at this restaurant were an absolute disgrace. “The key priority seemed to be placing profits over offering good quality food by operating with a blatant disregard for the health of their customers. “We have tried to support the

restaurant to clean up its act, but they have consistently failed to do so.” At the time of going to press, the restaurant was still open for business.