A young mum claims she was forced to use her neighbour's electricity after being cut off by Scottish Power, which left her children freezing for more than a week. Caitlin Minshull, 22, alleges the young family were without power from the energy provider for 11 days.
The mother, from Prescot, says she was in her flat with her two children, aged five months and 19 months, when her electricity was cut off earlier this month. She was left baffled by the sudden shut-down of power, as she claims that she recently topped up.
The alleged incident occurred at around 4pm on December 6, reports the Liverpool Echo. Caitlin's sister was in the shower when the outage occurred, leaving the family completely bemused as to what had happened.
The mum says, following the cut off, she went on the Scottish Power app to top up, which did not work. She then visited a corner shop to try topping up again, and nothing changed again.
Caitlin said: "It just cut off even though there was £10 still on the meter. I tried topping up on the app and at the shop, and by the time I got back it was 8pm anyway, so my neighbour let me stay over with the kids.
"The next day I called and was on hold for hours before getting through, then they buttoned me. My neighbour let me run an extension lead from her home into mine so I could plug in a lamp, heater and a kettle so I would do the baby's bottles.
"I got in touch with my housing options team and they told me it was down to the supplier to look at the meter. They tried to ring Scottish Power and were also on hold for around three hours. But once the housing options manager started explaining the situation she was hung up on."
Due to the flat being so cold in wintery conditions, Caitlin claims she had to wrap her baby up in a vest, baby grow, and a snow suit. The mum added: "I think it's disgusting, it's so tough to get through to them and we can literally see the air when we breathe. The babies are freezing and we just can't keep the flat warm. I just want to make people aware of how bad Scottish Power are."
A Scottish Power spokesperson said: “We are sorry to hear about the issues Ms Minshull has experienced. We are investigating and will contact her directly to discuss this.”
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