A DISABLED woman was horrified after being bitten by a rat which came up through her toilet while she was sitting on it.

Maxine Killingback, who lives on her own, jumped up in shock when she felt the rat bite the top of her leg and fell over onto the floor, hurting her back.

After drowning the rat herself using a plunger and barricading the toilet to stop other rats which were trying to get out, she phoned Greenwich Council only to be told she would have to wait three weeks for them to come and sort out the problem.

The 55 year-old, from Greenwich Council-owned Armada Court, Creek Road, Deptford, was too afraid to go back in the bathroom and fled the flat to stay with her partner in Woolwich following the incident on March 17.

She said: "You don't expect to sit down to spend a penny and be bitten by a rat.

"It just felt like someone had put a needle in me.

"When I jumped up it seemed to still have a hold on me."

Ms Killingback, who has rheumatism in her legs and back, said the rat was still trying to get out of the toilet after she fell on the floor.

She tried flushing the toilet chain twice but the creature came back each time.

Ms Killingback said: "It was a big, black one, seven or eight inches long.

"It was trying to climb up but it kept sliding back down. I put a plunger down the toilet but it kept trying to get out."

Ms Killingback, who says she has a nervous disposition, then jammed a bleach bottle next to the plunger and kept it there until the rat had drowned.

She said: "Then there were more coming up, I could see their noses poking through the gap.

"I just put two big boxes of washing powder and other things on top of the toilet to block it and shut the bathroom door.

"I've never known anything like it.

"My next door neighbour came in to verify what had happened because I thought I was going mad."

Ms Killingback phoned the council but was told it was not an emergency and she would have to wait.

She said: "I didn't know what had hit me I really didn't. I'm so upset."

After returning to the flat last night (March 18) Ms Killingback says she has already seen three rats in the kitchen.

She said: "I'm petrified and I don't know what to do. I can't wait three weeks can I?"

A council spokesman said it was not possible to make an immediate appointment for its free rat control service due to high demand.

He said Ms Killingback had declined to be put on a standby list and an offer of advice on how to contact a private pest control contractor but would be visited by a pest control officer on April 7.

The spokesman said: "There are no records in the past 12 months of other complaints about rats in that block, and no immediate evidence of runs or holes."