A WOMAN has complained after housing bosses left her and her one-year-old baby in a home infested by ants for four days.

Social services deemed the property on Ruskin Avenue, Kearsley unfit for children under five after an inspection on Monday, but Bolton at Home could only offer her £20 and access to a food bank.

Council pest control arrived yesterday and cleared the property where mother of three Tara Fletcher woke up to find the insects had even bitten her baby.

Describing the state of her home on Monday, she said: “They’re all underneath the wallpaper and they’re running in and out of holes in the walls and pipes.

“The boiler cupboard is swarming with them, there’s about 100 ants in my loaf of bread and they’ve left bite marks on my baby as well.

“The social worker came in and walked straight out because they were everywhere.”

She claimed the council’s only suggestion for rehousing was to move into a neighbouring family of seven’s two-bed home along with with her nine and 13-year-old children too.

Miss Fletcher took the £20 council hand-out for meals but rejected access to the food bank because she said she had money to buy food but that wouldn’t have helped.

“What’s the point in taking food from a food bank when I can’t even cook it,” she explained.

“I ordered a takeaway yesterday and within seconds there was ants on the plate, so why would I take food when there’s other people that could be using it.”

Gemma Parlby, Bolton at Home’s Director of Housing Services, said: “We appreciate this is a difficult and distressing situation for our tenant. When we were alerted to the issue, we arranged to visit our tenant to check on her and her family.

“We’ve offered to support her with food from the local food bank and Storehouse Pantry until the ant infestation can be dealt with by the council’s pest control team.

“We will continue to offer what support we can until the issue is resolved. If any action is recommended by the pest control team, we’ll visit the property again to see what work may be required.”