Rat house trapped

The researcher "felt sorry" for the rodents

A South African researcher kept more than 1,000 rats in her suburban house - after apparently bringing them home from the laboratory where she worked.

Police who visited the house found that the rodents - which roamed freely in the building - had destroyed most of the furniture and internal fittings.

The skirting boards were eaten, the carpets were eaten, there were holes in the furniture and even in the wooden floors

Police spokeswoman

Environmental health officials declared the rats a health hazard and had the house fumigated.

The authorities knew nothing of the menagerie until the researcher, Gwynneth Quick, 39, locked herself out of the house and called the police for help.

Police officers opened the door and were confronted by hundreds of the rodents.

"I have never seen such a sight in my whole career," police spokeswoman Superintendent Amanda Hattingh said.

Destruction

"The house was full of rats. The skirting boards were eaten, the carpets were eaten, there were holes in the furniture and even in the wooden floors."

The rats are believed to have been taken from a laboratory.

"She said she couldn't handle the rats being killed and the tests being done on the rats and the way they were treated," Superintendent Hattingh said.

Ms Quick told environmental health officer Rowland Rumbelow that she had been conducting "behavioural research" on the rats.

The rodents had the run of the house, apart from one room set aside for human habitation.

A spokesman for Stellenbosch University near Cape Town said Ms Quick had worked as a part-time researcher at the university's pharmacology faculty until late last year.

Ms Quick was taken to hospital for observation.

Environmental health officers draped a tarpaulin over the house and fumigated it to kill the rats.

Other resident rodents - a cage full of guinea pigs in the back yard - had a luckier escape. They have been quarantined by the local Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.