Residents kicked up a stink after piles of rubbish dumped outside a fast-food restaurant started to attract rats.

Naram Mohan, has lived over the alleyway behind Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) in High Street, Dorking, for the past year.

But on several occasions he has been plagued by a stink emanating from the bins behind his home.

Last week Mr Mohan contacted the Advertiser when about 50 bags of rubbish piled up and rats became attracted to the site.

He said: "The rubbish has been there over a week.

"It is not the first time it has mounted up like this. It has happened at least six other times since I have lived here.

"It smells very bad because there is all the decomposing food and animal products festering.

He added: "It is not so bad when the weather is in minus degrees, but when it is milder it is awful.

"The other night there were rats to the left and right of the bags, lots of them."

The waste is normally collected throughout the week by Biffa, but a spokesman told the Advertiser that an outstanding bill meant they had to stop collections.

He said: "The reason the bins weren't collected was because the client had a stop put on them because they didn't pay their bill.

"It is a private company and we are dependent on people paying their bills on time.

"They have cleared it now and they were only on stop for a week. We went to the site on Monday this week and cleared everything up. There should not be an ongoing problem."

Rogan Selbriha, team leader at KFC, admitted there had been a build-up of waste.

He said: "We have now paid all the bills and it is all cleared up now. We have had a health inspection and we are all fine.

"There should be no problems in the future."