City officials are trying to clean up a St. Petersburg house that is infested with hundreds of rats.

Lonnie Coleman Jr. shares the house on 10th Avenue S with his niece, 29-year-old Florine Brown. Brown had hundreds of huge rats she called her pets, her family.

"I love them very much," Brown said.

Rats were running freely through the house, living in the furniture and walls. Now, city officials are working with the SPCA to clean up the house, setting traps in cabinets, in the oven and on urine-soaked floors.

"It's kinda bad, it really is, it’s kinda bad," said Coleman. "But if we can get this together, I mean it’ll be fine."

Cliff Smith with St. Petersburg Social Services says he’s working with Brown and overseeing the cleanup project. Smith says the Rodent Control division of the Sanitation Department began the first phase.

"We’ve set up traps and we’re trying to catch as many of the rats as we can,” said Smith. “We know there’s hundreds of them here."

Relatives were concerned for Brown, called for help and urged her to get out of the house.

"Eventually we might try to see if she’s gonna need a little help,” said Coleman.

Smith says crews will set traps for about a week, but that likely won’t be enough.

"At some point the rats become trap-shy and we won’t be able to catch any more of them and then we’re gonna have to go to plan B,” said Smith.

Smith said that will mean bringing in extermination experts to advise on the next step.

Coleman said the house has been in the family for generations. He hopes it can be restored.

"It’s gonna need some major work done to it," said Coleman.

The SPCA originally learned about the house after one of Brown's relatives called to report that she had between 300 and 500 rats living in her house.  As of early December, they had removed about 100 of them.