A dad was left furious after his young daughter tripped over a massive dead rat on a busy Glasgow street.

The father, who lives in Finnieston and wants to remain anonymous, was walking with his 11-year-old on Argyle Street this month when the disturbing incident happened.

He claims his child has been left “terrified” and is too scared to even use her own back garden.

Now he is demanding the council “invest in better pest control” after claiming the rodent issue has gone too far in the city.

He said: “I was walking along Argyle street with my young daughter when she tripped over a massive dead rat laying in the middle of the pavement.

“She’s seen and heard rats running around the area quite a lot now, so she’s terrified.

“She can’t even go outside and play in the area, including in our back garden.

“She sometimes gets frustrated if she has to stay in the house because of it and if I don’t have time at that moment to walk her somewhere like the park instead. “I think that the council should be investing in better pest control.

“The area is full of rat holes which have been burrowed deep into the ground and they need to actually tackle the nests and do follow up checks.”

The dad said his home near Argyle Street has also been plagued with rodents since his bins were not emptied for months over the festive period.

He claims this caused a lot of breeding leaving his garden “overrun” with rats, forcing him to take protection when going outside.

He said: “I’m also hesitant to let her go in the garden as some of these rats have jumped at me when I’ve gone out to take the bins out.

“It’s got to the point that I actually take a stick out with me to empty the bins in case any run out at me.

“When the weather is nice we used to sit out the back and eat, relax and have friends over but we haven’t done that in a long long time because the garden is overrun with rats.

“The scale of the infestation started to get visibly worse around the start of this year when the council left our bins uncollected for nearly four months during the festive period.

“After multiple emails to the council and my MP they were eventually collected but by then they’d already grown in number massively.

“They also eventually put some bait boxes out but these aren’t topped up and the dead rats are left to gather on the streets or be eaten by birds.”

A spokesman for the council: “Our pest control team has been active in this area and we are hopeful the bait boxes that have been laid down will prove to be effective.

“We will continue to monitor this situation closely and replenish the bait boxes as required.”