Woman seeks compensation after spending two months without heating
A woman who was forced to live without heating or hot water for almost two months during the winter, is making a public liability claim against her landlord.
According to reports, her boiler broke down constantly over a period of several weeks, but it was not replaced by the owners, until this week.
The woman, 48, who has been a tenant with the Housing Association for nine years, said: “The boiler stopped working just before Christmas and Christmas Day was terrible.”
The woman, who is registered as disabled and receives housing benefits, was unable to report the problem until 4 January, as the offices were closed over the Christmas period.
Several attempts to repair the boiler have been made since, but each time it broke down again shortly afterwards.
Neighbours of the woman, who are tenants as well, claim they also made requests for repairs and received no response.
Commenting on this, a spokeswoman for the housing group said: “Each time our contractors called, they repaired what they thought was the problem but we now know there was an underlying fault which caused parts to re-fail”.
The woman has filed a compensation claim but it is unknown if the other tenants will file an accident claim too.Updated on 22/02/2010