A MOTHER has been forced to decamp from her bedroom after hundreds of maggots breeding in uncollected rubbish threatened to invade her home.

Samantha Sansom, 37, has described how wriggling fly larvae frequently swarm through overflowing rubbish outside her flat because of a two-week wait for binmen.

The mum-of-three admits maggots were never a problem several months ago when her bins were collected weekly.

“The smell turns your stomach, especially with the warm weather,” she said.

“Of course with maggots you then get the flies, which are revolting too.

“The maggots get everywhere and I worry for my children who have to walk through them to go and play in the garden.”

The full-time mum says she has been forced to spend time and money scrubbing her bins with bleach in an attempt to stop the maggots crawling through the brickwork and into her bedroom.

And she confesses the threat of a maggot invasion has forced her and her husband to move their mattress into the lounge and sleep at the opposite end of her flat in Rowlands Manor.

News Shopper: Samantha and her children are joined by neighbour Sarah Carpenter and her son two-year-old Toby Hubbard

Speaking about a heavy rain shower several weeks ago, Mrs Sansom said: “Maggots just covered the whole floor by the bins - it was like a sea of white maggots.

“They were absolutely everywhere, crawling up and into the walls. They were all over the doorstep and were coming in through the front door.”

She added: “In the past I have had to clean up sanitary towels and leftover food which has spilled out of the bins. The whole thing is disgusting.”

The flats on the corner of Kent Road and St Mary Cray High Street have five wheelie bins and two recycling bins for six families.

A council spokesman admits the bins at Rowlands Manor should not have been collected fortnightly, unlike other houses in Kent Road which are part of a fortnightly waste collection trial.

Homes in the adjoining High Street are not part of the Composting for All trial which sees the local authority collect food and kitchen waste weekly, leaving rubbish bins to be emptied every other week.

News Shopper: ST MARY CRAY: Bin maggot threat prompts bedroom upheaval

The spokesman added: “This has been an extremely unfortunate mix-up and we profusely apologise for the distress and inconvenience that residents have suffered.

“We are meeting with residents to resolve this situation now and make sure this never happens again.

“It is rare and isolated but unfortunate incident.”

Composting for All affects around 25,000 homes across the borough after its inception nearly two years ago.

It is part of a council bid to reduce the amount of rubbish it sends to landfill.

Ward councillor and leader of the Lib Dems in Bromley, David McBride, says he will be “pushing” the council to consider residents’ concerns at the end of the trial, including those of young families throwing out large numbers of nappies.

Bromley Council have yet to set a date for the end of the trial.