A mum-of-two is “disgusted” with her housing provider after being left without a working boiler for more than three weeks.

Louise Phythian, 32, of Edward Vinson Drive, says her boiler stopped working on January 2.

Despite contacting Hyde Housing, which manages the council property, straight away, she and her two children, Alexis, seven, and five-year-old Joey, were left in the cold.

She said: “It’s really stressful. It’s unhygienic because I can’t clean properly. My little girl says she’s cold all the time. She didn’t want to get out of her pyjamas this morning. She doesn’t normally complain, so it must be affecting her.”

Ms Phythian, who has lived in her flat since 2012, said that engineers from Hyde came out within four hours of her reporting the problem, but left saying her boiler would need two new parts.

She was given a new appointment for January 17, but was told on the morning they were due that the parts had not yet arrived.

Following another visit on January 23, she was told she would need a new boiler altogether.

Hyde had temporarily provided the family with an electric fan heater. However, Ms Phythian, who has been spending weekends at her mother’s home, says it pushed her electricity bills up from £7-10 a week to nearly £20.

Speaking on Tuesday (January 23) she said: “They should have told me that at the beginning. If they had checked it out properly the first time around it wouldn’t have been this long and I could have had a new boiler by now.

“No one has phoned to check to see if I’m all right. I haven’t even done my washing because I’m scared the electricity is going to run out.

“No one is keeping me updated. I am a single parent and it’s a lot of extra money to be paying out for my electricity.”

Nick Melling, head of compliance for Hyde Group, apologised to Miss Phythian for the inconvenience caused to her and her family.

He said: “We always aim to deliver a high standard of service to our customers, but unfortunately have fallen short on this occasion.

“Due to issues with the parts and age of the boiler, we have arranged to fit a new boiler on Thursday, January 25, which will offer a permanent solution.

“We have also been in contact to arrange to reimburse her for the extra electricity used by the temporary fan heaters we supplied.”