A MUM from Malvern has hit out at Fortis Living after she had to wait three weeks for her landlord to fix her boiler – saying that her children fell ill as a result of there being no heating.

Charlotte Ledington, a mum-of-five, told the Gazette that housing association Fortis failed to quickly repair her boiler at her Elgar Avenue home despite her repeated requests for help.

“We have lived here for three years and never had any problems before, but I am fed up now," the 28-year-old said.

“At the start they were really helpful and told us the boiler would be fixed in a day or two but that never happened as they said they couldn’t find the part.

“I called every other day for three weeks and two days and they would not listen to me.”

Charlotte says she believes some of her children have fallen ill as a result of her house being cold.

“I have got a 10 week-old who has been in hospital with tonsillitis and two have since developed coughs and colds," she said.

“We asked for heaters to be provided but they said it was not cold enough, but it has been below zero on the nights.

“All we had was a couple of small fan-heaters, but they don’t give off nearly enough heat and cost too much to run.”

A spokesman for Fortis said that repairing Charlotte's boiler was not classed as a priority job.

“Our engineer was originally called out on October 14 but was unable to do the repair as a new part had to be ordered," the spokesman told the Gazette.

“The customer’s water is heated via an immersion heater and the property is fitted with an electric fire so therefore this would not be classed as a priority job.

“We updated the customer and provided free standing heaters whilst waiting for the spare parts.

“When our engineer attended to fit the spare part on November 1 another issue was found with the boiler.

“An engineer attended the property on Tuesday and has now completed the repair and the customer now has an operating boiler.

"We appreciate that the customer had to wait longer than we would have liked for her repair to be completed as we endeavour to complete repairs first time where we are able, however, on this occasion this was just not possible.”