Dead rats were discovered by council workers after a family threatened to spend the night at a housing office in protest at the smell in their home.

Keiran Currah, 29, and his partner Sonya Joseph, 34, went to complain about a nasty smell in their house to Oxford City Council staff at the housing office in Cuddesdon Way, Blackbird Leys.

They told them they and their daughters Sabrina, 12, and Kyanna, seven, would be spending the night at the housing office in protest. They said the stench made the house unfit to live in.

Mr Currah said: "We were at the end of our tether.

"Everything just got on top of us. My kids are depressed. They call it the smelly house.

"We told the council we were going to sleep in the housing office because it was a lot more comfortable."

Council workers were sent to pull up the floorboards of the family's council house in Shelley Road, east Oxford, and two dead rats were found.

Mr Currah said the council had left rat poison during the previous week, but had not returned as planned to look under the floor.

The city council said it was now aware of the family's concerns about rats and damp, and was addressing them.

City council spokesman David Penney said: "There has been some sort of communication breakdown between pest control and the building repairs service which has taken the intervention of the area manager to sort out.

"The council can only apologise for that communication breakdown.

"The area manager will be taking charge to make sure all the issues are resolved including the rats and the damp."