A YORK resident has been without hot water and heating for almost a week after a broken pipe caused an oil leak in her home.

Sarah Burton, who lives in a Yorkshire Housing Association property in Foston, was visited by the association's workmen following several calls about issues with her boiler.

When the team visited last Thursday, a repairman broke a pipe which caused an oil spill - leaving Sarah reliant on electric heaters which cost her more to run.

Yorkshire Housing said its engineers cleaned up the spillage immediately with the team waiting on a new part not due to arrive until "the next few days".

Sarah, who balances her life as a mum with her job at before and after school clubs, said the situation feels like a "nightmare".

Recalling the events of the last engineer visit, she said: "He was having a carry on and I thought, 'Is it wrong parts again?' and all of a sudden there was this awful smell of oil.

"He'd broken one of the pipes. He said, 'Oh I've isolated it, I'll be back this afternoon with a new part for it'. No sign of him.

"It smells really bad, it’s that strong you can taste it.

"You can smell it when you're coming downstairs, it's that potent."

Despite taking time out of her day for further engineer visits, Sarah was later told by a phone operator that the new parts have not arrived and no one will be coming.

"It's a nightmare," she said.

"We have been with them 30 years and it just seems to be getting worse and worse. They tell you one thing and then another when you ring to see why they haven’t turned up. They make some excuse, you make another appointment and then they don’t turn up again.

"We pay our rent and the thing is we work hard. In this day and age you don't expect it, especially after it was last Thursday when all this happened."

A spokesman for Yorkshire Housing said: “We always aim to repair any issues with heating and hot water as quickly as we can.

"Each time we have been to the customers home previously we have fixed the heating and hot water before leaving. Apart from the latest visit. The engineer identified an oil leak on the system. He cleaned up the spillage and ordered a part to replace it. We offered to provide electric heaters as a short-term measure until this arrived.

"Unfortunately, the wrong part was delivered which has delayed the final repair. We have kept the customer informed of timescales and expect to make the repair in the next few days when it arrives.

"We want to give a great service and sometimes that doesn’t go to plan. We’d encourage all customers to get in touch with us if they are unhappy with something. That means we can work with them to put it right.”