Pensioners left in cold for Christmas
AN elderly couple have been left in the cold for THREE DAYS over Christmas after their boiler broke down and their landlord was unable to fix it.
Fed up Kathleen Donovan, 75, and husband Ronald, 79, woke up on Christmas Day to no heating or hot water.
Ronald, who has diabetes, and Kathleen, who suffers from arthritis, say they have been virtually confined to one room and using the oven to warm up their freezing home on Lomas Lane in Rawtenstall.
After her daughter Beverley, who was away visiting family in Liverpool, managed to contact social housing landlord Together Housing’s customer helpline, an engineer eventually came out at about 8.15pm on Monday.
Annoyed Kathleen says he told them it could not be fixed and they needed a replacement, and they are still waiting to find out when one can be fitted, following a subsequent inspection on Wednesday morning.
Kathleen, a former nurse at Rossendale General Hospital, said: “He said he was sorry but there was nothing he could do. We had to get back into bed in the afternoon to get warm. We even had to turn the oven on in the kitchen too, because we didn’t have any heating at all. God knows what our electric and gas bill is going to be like.”
Kathleen says she and Ronald have also been forced to increase their medication to cope with the drop in temperature and said they were told they had to stay in the house and wait so that an engineer could have access.
They have been given a heater by a friend and that has allowed them to keep the lounge reasonably warm while the rest of the house is cold.
She said: “It’s unacceptable really. We couldn’t even go to a friend’s if we wanted to, so we have been stuck in the house. We are trying to stay in the lounge and not use all the heaters. When you open the lounge door, it gets cold very quickly. We are the end flat in the block so we have an outside wall, which is colder. The bathroom is really, really cold. We have a walk-in shower and all the tiles are cold and the radiators aren’t working in there.
“We have illnesses and it can be very painful, especially when it is cold, so we have had to try and keep warm to be without pain, really. We have had to take extra painkillers.”
Together Housing was unavailable for comment as we went to print.