A mother fears her family will be forced to spend Christmas in the cold after going more than a month without heating.

The boiler at Louise Longa’s home in Forest Road, Walthamstow, first broke down on November 1, leaving the 30-year-old, her partner and three young children without heating or hot water.

Ms Longa made several calls to Circle Housing, who manage her property in a bid to get the problem fixed.

Contractors for the housing association then missed several appointments to attend her home, before the boiler was finally repaired on November 21.

However, a few days later, the boiler had broken again and now Ms Longa is concerned her family will be forced to wait another three weeks for help.

She said: “I cannot take it anymore, I do not have the patience to keep going through this with them. I do not want my kids living like this, it is horrible.

“I have always paid my rent on time, I just do not understand why they are treating us like this.

“We have three young kids in this house- they are seven, six and three, they need to wash before they go to school, I have been getting up to boil the kettle for them to have a wash.

“I am just worried we are going to have a cold Christmas. We are going to have to dance with Circle again for three weeks to get it sorted.”

Circle Housing has now pledged to fix Ms Longa’s boiler this week.

Christian O'Mahoney, head of property for Circle, said: “We are sorry that our resident has experienced ongoing issues.

“We arranged for our contractor to visit her home again on December 6 and they identified that a number of parts are needed.

“A further appointment has been arranged with the resident for today (December 7) to resolve the problem.

“We have visited the home on a number of occasions since we were made aware of the problem.

“On each occasion our contractor advised that they carried out checks before making sure our resident’s heating and hot water were working properly.”