Single mother appalled at treatment by heating company after damaging her belongings and leaving her without heating.

‘I am really angry about the way we have been treated. I am upset and feel so violated by this. Just because I am a single mum with two children, no one seems to care about us.’

A single mum of two from Harold Hill is angry and appalled at the way her and her family were treated when their heating stopped working. Teresa from Sedgefield Crescent has had heating problems for six weeks and has made an official complaint against the heating company.

She told the Havering Daily: “We all had Covid so had to isolate so obviously no one could come to our house during that time. But when they did finally come, they way they treated us was so bad, damaging my property, being rude, they basically just didn’t care.

“I had to struggle to get an engineer round to my property. When he finally came, he informed me that I needed a valve and arranged to come on the Thursday. I then received a voicemail saying he wasn’t coming on the Thursday after waiting for him to come.

“On the Friday I rang and they told me an engineer would definitely be with me. At 4.20 he still had not arrived and I was worried that we were going to be left without heating for the whole week end again. Just after 5pm a young girl contacted me saying that no one was coming. I then asked to speak to the manager and was refused.

“I contacted my local councillor Jan Sargent who arranged for me to have fan heaters to keep myself and my children warm and rang the out of hours service and was informed that an engineer would be with me on Monday.

“When Monday came I had just got out of the bath when two engineers arrived. They made their way into my loft without letting me know, and I was getting dressed I heard an almighty crash. I looked out to see some of my belongings that had been stored in the loft, had fallen down on the floor.

“I asked them to please put my belongings back up in the loft as I do not have a ladder to be able to easily access the loft. My house had been left in a chaotic state. They came back and started to put some of it back and it was then that I realised that some of my things had smashed. I was really angry and told them that they had smashed my stuff. There answer was “Do you want us to put it back or not?”

“They then went to leave and my daughter went to her room to discover that they had chucked some of belongings into her room instead of up in the loft. My son was really angry and went after them asking them to come back and do the job properly, which of course they didn’t.

“I am really angry about the way we have been treated. I am upset and feel so violated by this. Just because I am a single mum with two children, no one seems to care about us.”

Teresa has now made an official complaint to the heating company about the shocking way her and her family have been treated.

A spokesperson for Havering council told the Havering Daily:

“Whilst we understand that having intermittent heating issues can be distressing, we have done everything we can to help solve this issue for the resident.

“We initially spoke with them on 26 February, and helped to diagnose the issue and restart the heating over the phone, meaning a visit wasn’t necessary.

“Unfortunately, the heating stopped working again on 29 March, and our heating repairs contractor visited the same day. They identified the issue but were unable to repair it that day, as a replacement part needed to be ordered.

“Temporary heaters were provided for the resident and a follow-up appointment was scheduled for the 31 March, but later moved to the 4 April due to unforeseen circumstances. The heating was fully restored on 4 April, meaning that the property was only without heating for a few days.”

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