Mum left without hot water or heating had to wash kids in sink
IT TOOK FIVE DAYS AND SEVERAL COUNCIL WORKER VISITS TO RESOLVE
A SINGLE mum was forced to wash her two young sons in the sink after being left with no heating or hot water for five days because of delays to a boiler repair.
Rosie-mae Osborne, 26, had to repeatedly take time off her job as a cleaner to be home in east Hull for multiple appointments that failed to fix the issue.
Hull City Council has since apologised for the delays, saying it was a “complex” problem that required multiple visits from the repair team.
But Ms Osborne said she had been “passed from pillar to post” by the council after waking up to the huge damp stain in her living room on Saturday morning, saying the whole experience had been an “absolute joke”.
“I came downstairs and there was a big stain on my living room ceiling,” she said.
“I touched it to check if it was damp and my finger just went straight through the ceiling.”
While the council told her over the phone they would be unlikely to carry out repairs that day due to it being a weekend, they sent an on-call worker out to assess the damage.
“At first, he wanted to turn the full water supply off, but I told him I had two kids and couldn’t do that,” she said.
“So he said he thought it was probably the hot water and said if he turned off the hot water someone would be out on Monday to fix it properly.”
But soon after he left, the leak began “pouring” water from the ceiling.
Another on-call worker came and told her that if they wrapped a towel around it then it could probably hold until Monday, but the leak started up all over again ten minutes after he left.
“I rang again and they said the only thing left is to turn all the heating off,” she said.
“So I asked if they could offer any backup heating, but they said because it wasn’t November it wasn’t cold enough.”
She was left with no heating or hot water from Saturday evening, eagerly awaiting her appointment on Monday to get it fixed.
Monday arrived after two days of no heating and bathing her children, aged seven and three, in the sink using the kettle, but the worker who visited her said it would be another few days before it could be fixed because it needed a particular part.
The following day, Tuesday, October 20, another worker arrived to fit that part, before telling Ms Osborne that the issue was actually to do with the boiler.
He promised that another person would arrive by 6pm to fix it. But no one showed up.
It was only on Wednesday, October 21, that someone was finally able to fix the issue.
“He came and said the last three people who came round could’ve solved it,” Ms Osborne said.
“Five days without any hot water, no heating and they weren’t even bothered. I had my youngest saying to me: ‘Mammy, I’m so cold’. But I was told we weren’t a priority because he’s not under one.
“Nowadays you just wouldn’t expect it, it was so frustrating. I’ve been backwards and forwards, the workers were blaming the council and the council were blaming the workers. It’s an absolute joke.”
A spokeswoman for Hull City Council said: “We are very sorry for the inconvenience caused to Ms Osborne and her family.
“The necessary repairs to the boiler were complex and it was unfortunate that our repair team had to make so many visits, but the situation has now been resolved.”