Top lawyer who sued a storage firm over claims he developed a life-threatening disease from rats who infested his furniture loses £1m court battle after judge ruled there was no connection between the rodents and his heart condition

• Dr Michael Spencer and his wife, Reena, sued storage company Safestore Ltd 
• Rats decimated the couple’s belongings at the site in Ruislip, west London 
• Storage company insisted they did their utmost to ‘mitigate the risk of damage’ 

A top lawyer has lost a £1million court battle to prove his life-threatening heart condition was sparked by a ‘rat-borne infection’ picked up at a storage unit.

Dr Michael Spencer and his wife, Reena, sued storage company Safestore Ltd over a rodent infestation at its site in Ruislip, west London. 

The rats decimated the couple’s belongings, including Mrs Specer’s silk dresses. 

Dr Spencer said an infection he developed after picking through the items damaged by rats triggered an underlying but dormant heart condition, which left him fighting for breath and has knocked around 15 years off his life expectancy. 

But Judge Mark Raeside KC has now thrown out the couple’s claim against the storage company, ruling there was no connection between rodents infesting their belongings and Dr Spencer’s heart problem. 

Dr Michael Spencer, 60, and his wife, Reena, (pictured together) are suing Safestore Ltd for around £500,000, a sum which includes £30,000 for their damaged valuables, as well as compensation for the devastating impact of the heart disease on Dr Spencer

Safestore accepted ‘failing to take reasonable care’ to avoid the couple’s belongings being damaged by vermin, but flatly denied there was any link between the marauding rodents and Dr Spencer’s heart affliction, insisting they did their utmost to ‘mitigate the risk of damage caused by vermin’. 

Central London County Court heard that the Spencers The couple had put their belongings in storage with a view to revamping their new home in Uxbridge. 

They first learned of the vermin problem when Mrs Spencer went to examine their unit in April 2018 only to discover that rodents had been chewing on her silk dresses. 

The following year, the couple had to spend hours ‘sorting through’ their damaged goods in the company’s storage unit in order to put in an insurance claim. 

Their barrister, Colm Nugent, claimed both picked up a rat-borne infection due to rodent exposure in a confined space. While Mrs Spencer recovered, Dr Spencer’s heart disease resulted from this infection. 

The couple claimed up to £1million damages for the exposure’s effects on Dr Spencer’s health and for the loss of goods not covered under their insurance policy, along with a refund of storage payments.

But after a three-day trial, Judge Raeside rejected their claim.

He noted how rats had been found at the Safestore site at the end of 2017, with one even discovered in the reception area.

But the company had promptly alerted pest controllers about the rat presence and by November 2017 the problem was ‘substantially eradicated’ – a long time before the Spencers began regularly sorting through their possessions at the storage unit in 2019.

He said the Spencers had put their goods into store in August 2017 but made only sporadic visits to the lock-up unit during that year.

Safestore Ltd has admitted breach of duty over the infestation, but disputes that Dr Spencer developed a rat-borne infection due to contact with the storage unit and also questions whether the rodents were mice rather than rats

Dr Spencer, a previously highly fit man who was in the Royal Navy reserves, began suffering intense symptoms of fatigue and breathlessness in summer 2019, climaxing in a sudden collapse and hospitalisation in September that year.

‘He went from being a healthy, fit man who rarely saw a GP, to a sick man, to collapse, within approximately four months of intense exposure torodent infestation unit without PPE or protection’, his barrister told the court.

The patent lawyer’s legal team said one of the pumping chambers of his heart became dangerously enlarged due to a ‘genetic predisposition’, but claimed this condition would probably never have surfaced but for his exposure to rat infections 

The lawyer said in evidence that he began noticing his health was plummeting when he went on business trips in summer 2019 and couldn’t walk around without getting breathless.

READ MORE: Invasion of the mutant super-rats: How pests are ‘becoming less susceptible to rodenticide and more wary of control methods

‘I had always had very good health and I wanted to understand what had caused me to go from reasonably good health to having my heart trashed and having a pacemaker fitted in my shoulder which will be there for the rest of my life,’ he told the judge.

Dr Spencer’s lawyers had suggested he may have been affected by Weil’s disease, but the judge noted that he had been tested and given the all-clear. 

Judge Raeside said that rat-borne infections are rare in humans, particularly so Weil’s disease.

He said: ‘There was no infection which could have caused him to develop the symptoms of dilated cardiomyopathy. 

‘The reason for his development of (this condition) is explained by his age and genetic disposition. He would have had this anyway.’

While there may been exposure to rats at the storage unit, Dr Spencer had not suffered a rat-borne infection, the judge concluded. 

He also ruled that the couple were not entitled to the £7,000 compensation they were seeking to cover their non-insured losses. 

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