A disabled Rattray woman and her daughter say they have been struck down with pneumonia after their home fell into subzero temperatures having endured weeks of living with smashed-in windows. Bobby-Jo Boyle’s Caledonia Housing Association flat was targeted by vandals on November 20 - leaving three of her living room windows and one bedroom window exposed.
While the landlord boarded up the gaps in the meantime, the lack of insulation has left the 50-year-old and daughter Marley-Paige, 28, vulnerable to the freezing cold snap - with the area plummeting to lows of -8c in recent days.
The winter tundra continued this week with the Met Office issuing a yellow weather warning for snow and ice in Perth and Kinross today. Bobby-Jo described trying to stay warm in her home is akin to “living in Siberia”, that she and Marley-Paige - who works from home - have developed pneumonia and slammed Caledonia for its failure to replace the windows.
“It is minus four today and was minus eight on Tuesday,” she told the Perthshire Advertiser this week. “The boards they put up are wet now and after a few weeks they came along and put duct tape along the sides to seal it up.
“What good is that going to do? The water is dripping off the boards. We are freezing in our own home and both of us have got pneumonia. I suffer from Addison’s disease (a rare disorder of the adrenal glands) and COPD asthma.
“I have been on steroids for my health for over the past 25 years and I am on my second course of antibiotics. It is incompetence at the highest level. You can’t live like this. Since the property was damaged we also installed security cameras as an additional security measure. I have an alarm for nurses to come in if anything happens to me.”
Marley-Paige said she had been caring for her mum through her illness, while working from home in the icy temperatures. Bobby-Jo added that the heating has to be on constantly to stave off the ice cold weather with one kind neighbour handing them an additional heater.
“You could not make this up,” she said. “It is unacceptable - what have I got to do? I will end up in hospital again if this is not replaced.”
Scotland recorded its coldest December in over a decade after the UK’s lowest maximum temperature for 12 years was recorded in Aberdeenshire. The Met Office confirmed the highest temperature recorded in Braemar was -9.3C after overnight temperatures plummeted to -15.7C.
Caledonia confirmed the replacements of the windows will not take place until Monday - a month after they were first smashed in.
A spokesperson said: “Our team was alerted to the broken windows and immediately attended to it through our out of hours service on November 20. Our maintenance team have since visited to inspect the property and will be on site Monday, December 19 to replace the broken windows.
“We understand the challenges that this is having on our tenant and have made an offer of additional financial support for heating costs.”
Police Scotland confirmed that a 31-year-old man and a 29-year-old woman were scheduled to appear at Perth Sheriff Court last month in connection with the vandalism incident.
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