For the last 2 months, a family in Farnborough have been without hot water and heating due to not being able to get a new boiler delivered. Natasha Silvers, who is 26 years old from Cody Road, has had to take her 2 children Daniel and kristian, aged 9 and 11 months, to family members’ homes in order to bathe them since the beginning of November.

She contacted First Wessex, her housing association when the problem first arose but is still waiting on a permanent solution. She added, “After it stopped working we had so many people come out to look at it and try to fix it but no one has been able to. It’s completely broken.”

The family was forced to switch the boiler off after it failed on November 18, when a presence of carbon monoxide was detected. Miss Silvers said, “We were all feeling really ill and tired and I phoned up a gas company for some advice and they came out to the house and detected the boiler was leaking carbon monoxide so they switched it off and shut off our gas. After the gas was capped we were left with some fan heaters to keep us warm but I can’t afford the electricity bills for it, I spent £220 last month on the heater costs alone.”

The family was told at the beginning of the issue by First Wessex, that the parts needed to fix the boiler would be ordered although this was postponed due to firms closing over the festive period. The housing association has now stated they will give the family a new boiler for there troubles however, it is yet to arrive.

 “We were told it could take two weeks or more to get the new boiler to us, I don’t know what else to do. No one else in the road seems to be having this problem, it’s a nightmare, I have to put gloves on my baby when he sleeps to try and keep him warm,” said Miss Silvers.

A spokesperson for First Wessex said: “We sympathise that our resident has suffered inconvenience especially over the Christmas period due to boiler defects. A First Wessex out of hours engineer responded promptly when the first reports of noises in the boiler were made in November. “In order to repair the boiler new parts were ordered. Unfortunately these were not available until early January, instead a replacement boiler has been ordered. We also agreed from the outset that we would reimburse any additional electricity costs and we will continue to work closely with our resident until the new boiler has been installed.”