Holly Laing has previously said the bin men in her area have refused to pick up her rubbish, leaving her and her partner Sam with piles of bin bags in their shed
10:24, 11 Mar 2026Updated 10:24, 11 Mar 2026
Holly Laing and her partner Sam have been left with piles of bin bags after bin men ‘refused’ to pick up their rubbish (stock image)(Image: Getty Images)
A woman was in for a nasty shock while moving rubbish which she claimed bin men refused to collect from her shed into her car. Holly Laing, from Northampton, has previously said refuse workers in her area have refused to empty her bins. And now she has revealed something horrifying she discovered when sorting through her bin bags.
Holly explained previously that bins in her area are collected every fortnight on an alternate basis, with general waste collected one week, and recycling the other. She admitted her household generates “a lot of rubbish”, and as a result she and her partner have been forced to put bin bags in their shed because they won’t fit in the wheelie bin.
Speaking over a TikTok video of herself sorting through bags in the shed in her back garden, Holly, 27, said: “We have too much rubbish to fit in our wheelie bins every week, and last week they didn’t take our wheelie bins at all. Because of this we’ve been storing rubbish in our shed.
“The bin bags have been chewed, so we assumed there were rats in there. I’d already been to the tip multiple times, but this was me getting ready to take all these bin bags to the tip.
“And this was the moment I found the rat.” Holly is seen dropping the bag she is holding and running out of the shed in shock.
She continues: “I picked up the bag and saw it inside and it just made me feel really weird. I don’t actually have a phobia of rats but for some reason I was really scared.”
Holly then ropes in her partner Sam and tells him what happened. “It’s in that IKEA bag,” she says. “I’m refusing now, I’m not doing any more. I don’t know if it’s still alive because it hasn’t run out, but I swear it moved.”
Sam is then seen dragging the IKEA bag out of the shed with a garden fork, before flipping it upside-down, causing Holly to shriek and gasp, before saying: “It’s gone back in!”
“I called Sam for backup and he just tipped the bag over and it ran back into the shed,” Holly explained. Speaking as she is seen holding a black bin bag open so Sam can place the entire IKEA bag and its contents inside, she continues: “This is me being very helpful. I just didn’t want to do this any more after seeing the rat.
“Sam got all the bin bags out of the shed and checked that there weren’t any more rats. They got put into the car and I took them to the tip. I know that this is our own fault, so lesson learnt.”
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Holly previously explained she believes the bin men had refused to collect their waste as their bins were too full to close the lid. If a bin is so full the lid cannot close then it can cause a safety issue when being lifted by the bin lorry’s mechanical arms – and as a result many councils and waste collectors refuse to take over-filled bins.
People in the comments were horrified. And one added their own experience, saying: “I would’ve been down the street!! One time my partner was stood at our front door while it was open and he was distracted bc I was watching TV so he was too… A while later I thought my eyes were playing me up and I saw something like a large spider or wire creep round my heater round the side of my sofa.
“Told my partner and he panicked a bit in case it was a spider and I was like ‘no it was a mouse or something’ so he checked down the side of the sofa and nothing… lifted the sofa and dropped it… nothing… By this point I had stood on the sofa and made my way to the stairs which were opposite the front door.
“I then *stupidly* closed the front door and by the off-chance I moved a photo frame next to the sofa we hadn’t put up… and this mouse/rat on STERIODS ran out!! I f****** screamed, it went to bolt under my stairs (they’re the stairs that don’t connect if that makes sense) I screamed again telling my partner to open the door and the thing flew out the door.
“I screamed bloody murder, hyperventilate and cried so much!! My partner? He laughed. He has since then, never doubted me when I’ve told him I don’t like certain things. Rats/mice being number one.”