Mum and daughter left without gas for 10 weeks

Nichola Schampel, aged 25, told your Worcester News her problems had started in June when an engineer from British Gas visited her home in Ransom Avenue, off Bath Road, where she lives with her daughter Aaliyah.

“When he came he saw the cover had come off the front of my boiler and wires were dangling off it,” she said.

“He told me that was illegal and he would have to condemn it.”

Miss Schampel, who has lived in the privately rented house for about a year-and-a-half, said the boiler had been in a sorry state since she moved in.

She said she reported it to her landlord, but she has heard nothing further for more than two months.

“I told my landlord this isn’t right, it needs to be fixed and he just said, ‘Don’t worry about it’.

“No one seems to be doing anything or making any effort to get it sorted. It really shouldn’t have taken 10 weeks to get fixed.”

Miss Schampel, who will be starting an access to higher education course next month and hopes to be able to train as a midwife, added she was getting increasingly distressed about the situation.

“I’ve had to use the emersion heater for hot water and that’s costing a lot more, she said.

“I’m having to rely on my neighbours and my mum to cook hot meals.

“I’m getting really frustrated and stressed about it – all I want to do is to be able to provide my daughter with a cooked meal.”

The landlord of the property did not return our calls.

Miss Schampel said it was her understanding that the landlord had applied for a replacement boiler through a Government funded scheme being administered by White’s Plumbing Services.

A spokesman from White’s Plumbing Services said Miss Schampel was currently being assessed for their free boiler scheme.

“It’s not that we’re fobbing her off,” she said. “She’s going through the approval process and there’s nothing we can do until that’s completed.

“If she’s accepted she will get a new boiler but if not she or her landlord will have to pay for it.”