A single mum says her one-year-old son was put at risk by her housing association's "neglectful" attitude when she raised concerns about her boiler leaking carbon monoxide.
Amy Packer, 21, reported her fears about the carbon monoxide leak to GreenSquareAccord on Friday, February 25 but no one came out to check the boiler until the Monday.
The heating engineer then turned off her boiler and gas supply which meant Amy and her son Bobby were left without heating, gas or hot water for over a week until Wednesday, March 9.
Now the boiler has been fixed instead of being replaced, Amy is worried she will have to deal with a similar situation in the future.
She claims two of the engineers who assessed the boiler told her it was 'knackered' and needed replacing.
She said: "The whole situation was a mess because we were left for so long without gas and heating. It wasn't fair on my son because he can't tell me if he's cold.
"I had to order takeaways and go to other people's houses to eat.
"I couldn't wash our clothes so we've had to pay for a laundrette and our kettle has broken because we used it so much to heat the bath.
"It’s ridiculous. We haven’t been able to cook any dinner and they don’t seem to understand where we’re coming from with it.
"We were neglected for over a week. If I chose to not pay my bills and look after him in that way, I would have social services on my back."
Amy was first alerted to the potential carbon monoxide leak when her nieces complained of headaches.
"I then realised that we had been suffering from this for quite a while. I woke up feeling like I hadn't slept and needed to go back to sleep," she added.
After the heating engineer turned off the boiler on Monday, Amy rang GreenSquareAccord 20 times and sent seven emails.
The boiler started leaking water on Wednesday and a bucket had to be emptied regularly.
She says GreenSquareAccord only agreed to send another contractor out when she fired off a Facebook message. She claims she waited in all day and no one showed up.
"It wasn't fair to my son because I couldn't take him outside and no one even bothered to answer the phone.
"I tried to explain how difficult it is as a single parent to be living like this but they weren't interested.
"We were messed around and I felt like they didn't care.
"One man we spoke to even threatened that they wouldn't send someone out."
Amy offered to pay for someone external to come and fix it sooner but was told that wasn't allowed.
GreenSquareAccord's gas and oil operations manager Paul O’Driscoll said: "We take matters of gas safety very seriously.
"When our customer contacted us mentioning concerns of carbon monoxide we advised she call the National Gas Emergency Line straight away.
"Following that, our gas contractors visited the property to assess the boiler. We were frustrated to learn that our first contractor did not work within our usual timescales, and we would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused to the family.
"To reduce the amount of time needed to rectify the situation and restore heating and hot water to the property, a second engineer then visited the property.
"Parts were ordered, and a repair was carried out.
"The health, safety and comfort of our customers is our top priority, and I am pleased that the boiler is now fully operational and hot water and heating have been restored to the property."
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