A FAMILY whose boiler has broken down three times in 17 days say they’ve been treated “disgracefully”.

Anita Blackmore, who lives with her husband and two daughters, said the boiler first broke down on November 26.

But it wasn’t until December 6 that housing company, Sanctuary Housing, had an engineer visit the family home in Flame Way, Colchester.

And despite the repairs being completed, the boiler was out of order again just three days later.

The heating and hot water was fixed for a second time last week but things got even worse for the family when it broke down yet again.

Mrs Blackmore, 46, said missed appointments by Sanctuary Housing had left the family feeling ignored.

She said: “They’ve barely made any effort to get in touch with us - we’ve been treated disgracefully.

“They said they’d be here on December 4 and I spent all day on the phone trying to find out what time but later that evening they told me they didn’t even have the part.

“It was fixed two days later but then it broke down again three days after that.

“Sanctuary gave us some heaters but we’ve been trying to avoid using them because they cost so much to run.”

The second breakdown last Saturday meant the family of four were without heating when snow and sub-zero temperatures hit earlier this week.

Mrs Balckmore said she had lost count of how many times she had tried to contact the company to arrange repairs.

She explained: “We’re good tenants, we’ve been here for four years and we’ve never caused them any problems.

“Both of my daughters had to take time off school because they had a chill and high temperatures.

“We’ve been having to send them to my mother-in-law’s house to take showers and boiling the kettle for hot water.”

Sanctuary Housing is a not-for-profit organisation and has roughly 85,000 homes across England

Kimberley De Vergori, the operations manager at the company, said: “We apologise to Mrs Blackmore and her family for missing the original appointment.

“We should have let them know that we were awaiting the new part for the boiler.

“While we have given them electric heaters, we understand their frustration at being without heating and hot water.

“We can confirm that we expect all work to be completed this week.

“We will also be reimbursing Mrs Blackmore for the costs incurred by using the electric heaters.”