Shocked Jean came face-to-face with giant rats in her back garden
King-sized rats were making life a misery for tenants close to a run-down mill and surrounded by new building sites.
They were giving 53-yearold housewife Jean Leckie the washday blues.
She came face to face with the brown rats, some 12 inches long, as she tried to hang out her washing in July 1988.
“They just run over your feet,” she said from her home in Green Road, Paisley. “It’s really horrible.” Now exterminators were called in with deadly poison to deal with the vermin that were on the prowl for food.
“I’ve lived in this house for 40-odd years,” said Mrs Leckie.
“And I’ve never been troubled with rats before.
“This is the first time and it isn’t very pleasant.
“The rats are huge and run around the greens.
“They’re really bold.”
And 72-year-old neighbour William Young added: “I’ve been in this house since 1937 and never seen a rat.
“But these ones are big and ugly.
“They run through the gardens and across the main road.
“We’ve got to watch our every step now.”
A colony of rats had recently been killed off at the old Ferguslie Mills site, just yards away from Green Road.
And lots of new houses were being built in the close vicinity of the flats.
A spokesman for Renfrew District’s Environmental Health Department said: “We think this is a small pack which we think we can get under control fairly quickly.”