A Scots MS sufferer has lost out on the 'holiday of a lifetime' and is almost £2000 out of pocket after a month-long ceiling leak at her housing association home.
Jacqueline Smith was due to jet off to Kenya for a safari trip on June 5 but was unable to go over fears her adapted flat in Glasgow would flood.
The 60-year-old wheelchair user had been forced to empty bucket loads of water after workers from the Wheatley Homes Glasgow were unable to find the source of the leak. As the water continued to spread, her ceiling eventually caved in.
Jacqueline had already paid over £1500 for her and her carer’s flights, purchased a travel visa and booked an African sightseeing tour before making the heartbreaking decision to cancel.
She is also hundreds of pounds out of pocket after having to cancel a work trip to London.
While she has been able to recoup some of the cash from her insurance, the ordeal is taking its toll on her health.
She explained: “The anxiety and the frustration has left me really, really tired. This is an electric wheelchair so there’s also a risk with moving around buckets full of water.
“I’ve got muscular pain from the efforts of moving them as well because I’m having to bend over while sitting in my chair. I had booked this once in a lifetime trip to Kenya in November last year but I couldn’t leave the house.
“There was water coming in and the house would have been flooded because there’s no one to empty the buckets so I had to cancel it. I was also supposed to go to a conference in London last weekend but again, because nothing had changed, that had to be cancelled as well.”
Jacqueline claims that despite repeated visits from tradespeople, the water began to pour from the light fitting before the ceiling collapsed. She continued: "I could see that the ceiling was starting to bulge so I suspected it was going to come down. Then the following day it did.
“They got an emergency joiner out to block up the hole. They’re being very proactive now but perhaps if they had done this from the start, the leak wouldn’t have gotten to this stage.”
She added: “They were actually carrying out repairs on damage that had been caused from leaks from the flat upstairs when they found the latest one. That was over a month ago.
“I was contacting the call centre every day and they were sending out different tradespeople to try and discover the source.”
After being contacted by the Record, a Wheatley Homes Glasgow spokesperson confirmed a tradesperson would attend at Jacqueline’s home to fix the leak last week.
They added: “We’re very sorry it’s taken so long to get this fixed. Unfortunately, we’ve not been able to get into the flat above which is causing the problem.
“We offered our tenant a temporary move to a hotel while we carry out the work. We’ve also offered the tenant compensation and will help redecorate the flat once all of the work is done.”
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