They have tunnelled under her lawn, chased her down her garden path and stolen her washing.

And Black Country mother Julie Worsey is losing her battle with the badgers that have set up home in her garden.

Miss Worsey, of Butts Road in Penn, said: “The back garden is useless because whatever I do is either dug up or destroyed by them. I cannot even sit out on the patio because it overlooks barren ground. The lawn has been decimated.

“The badgers do not cause any problems for the neighbours. They just like it at my place. I have been reduced to tears at times.”

Miss Worsey, a strategic business development manager, has lived at the three bedroom semi with 18-year-old son Youseuf for 14 years and the uninvited guests moved in two years ago.

“A hole appeared in the lawn. I blocked it up and they dug an even bigger one alongside it,” she said.

“Then one day I was walking down the garden when a badger came out of the hole and chased me. It scared the life out of me. I learned two things. Badgers do not just come out at night, and they should not be disturbed during the breeding season.”

The animals are a protected species and people who disturb them face prosecution. Government officials caught two of the badgers, tagged them and put them back again so their movements could be monitored, and Miss Worsey was told the they could not be disturbed because it was their breeding season.

“I hung three bath towels and a dress to dry on the washing line, and the next morning they had gone. I saw one of the towels hanging over the badgers’ hole and found the other two down it, but the dress had vanished. It was the final straw. Either they move out or I do.”

Beth Rose, of Natural England, confirmed: “It is illegal to kill, injure or to interfere with a badger sett.”