Stanwell bin row leaves woman living in a 'sea of maggots'

Yasmin Khanam says communal bins are a breeding ground for insects

A woman's home has been taken over by "sea of maggots" due to issues with bin collections.

Yasmin Khanam, 29, moved into her new home in Yeoman Drive, Stanwell, in Surrey in November with the hopes of starting a family.

However, the Home Office worker said overflowing communal bins had turned that dream into a living nightmare.

Owners A2Dominion said it had been trying to find a solution but space constraints made this difficult.

Ms Khanam said she had nothing but headaches because of a dispute with the housing association over bin collections.

Hew new home is next to a set of communal bins that are supposed to be collected every fortnight, but these fill up very quickly and soon overflow, she said.

This makes them unsafe to be collected by Spelthorne Borough Council's refuse teams which means the area ends up a dumping ground, which encourages insects to breed.

The maggots then start to crawl from the bins and make their way into people's homes, Ms Khanam said.

She said: "It's been going on for nine months. We bought the house in November. The problems began piling up in December.

"Then January came and it still happened. The bins were overflowing."

Yasmin Khanam says the bins have been overflowing since she moved in in November

Ms Khanam said she had spent months of going back and forth between Spelthorne Borough Council and A2Dominion and yet the problem persists.

"It began to affect my work. We bought the house to start a family. I can't start a family when you've got a house full of maggots."

'Stuck to our shoes'

"It's like a sea of maggots," Ms Khanam said.

"It rained outside and we were walking through maggots. They were stuck to our shoes.

"If you open the window, you get flies. Flies and the smell," she said.

"During the heatwave last week, I couldn't open the window. It was unbearable."

Dawn Wightman, A2Dominion's homes and communities director, said: "We've been trying to find a practical solution that will work for everyone, given the space constraints of the site. 

"Our contractors have been asked to trial an additional weekly visit to prepare the bins for the Tuesday local authority collections which we hope will help keep things in order.

"In an effort to make sure collections happen on time we've also written to our residents to remind them how to use the waste and recycling bins and we will do this again."

Spelthorne Borough Council has been approached for comment.

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