A council forked out £3,680 in dealing with pest issues at properties it owns in two Suffolk towns over a four-year period.
The pests that Suffolk County Council (SCC) was called out for included ants, fleas, wasps and rats in Lowestoft and Beccles at council-owned properties.
The call-outs were revealed via a Freedom of Information request sent to the council by this paper covering 2019 to 2022.
Its response showed 2022 was the most expensive year for SCC to tackle pests in the two towns.
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A total of £1,710 was spent on one mice pest issue and one ant situation in Lowestoft and two wasp issues in Beccles.
2019 was the second most expensive year for the SCC as it spent £840 dealing with pest call-outs.
In Lowestoft it tackled two issues with ants, one problem with fleas and one issue with bird netting.
READ MORE: Pest control callouts up by 50pc in Great Yarmouth
And in 2019 SCC dealt with one issue of an ants nest in Beccles.
In 2020 SCC spent half of what they did the previous years in tackling pests.
A total of £420 was spent as SCC had one issue of rats in Lowestoft and one issue of wasps in Beccles.
Although in 2021 SCC didn't attend to any issues of pests in Beccles, it still spent a total of £710 dealing with two wasp situations in Lowestoft.
Our request had also asked for the same figures for Bungay but no pest issues were recorded.
The Freedom of Information Request also asked "Which street in each Beccles and Bungay and Lowestoft has had the highest number of callouts for rats specifically in Beccles and Bungay and Lowestoft?" The answer was Yarmouth Road in Lowestoft.
What you can do to keep pests away
Councils encouraged people to do the following to help prevent pest issues in their homes and businesses:
Ensure waste is stored securely and disposed of properly (using wheeled bins where you have them)
Do not feed livestock or birds with large amounts of excess food.
Keep gardens tidy and not overgrown.
Have you had issues with pests?
Please get in touch if you have been affected by pests and councils failing to act and we would love to cover it.
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