A young mother's joy at being housed turned to desperation after she found herself cold and isolated in her housing association property.

Kelly Irvin and daughter Mia outside her remote home in Rillington.

Kelly Irvin, 18, accepted the Ryedale Housing Association house, located up a dirt track outside Rillington, when her baby Mia was only two weeks old.

Although she had no transport and could not afford to have a telephone installed, Kelly felt compelled to take the old-fashioned terrace cottage with its solid fuel heating and leaking roof because of her situation. She had been staying with her boyfriend Nick Best at his one-bedroom housing association flat in Malton.

But the flat became too crowded with Mia's arrival nine weeks ago.

"Since then I've only spent four nights at the house because it's not just really cold there, I'm so isolated," she said.

"The doctor has written numerous letters saying I'm so depressed and Mia has not been well either."

When Kelly first went to the house, it had plaster walls covered in graffiti, bare skirting boards, a leak from the roof and a broken Parkray solid fuel burner.

She said the water leak and skirting boards had been fixed, but the fire still did not work even though she had reported the problem.

Kelly said: "I go to the housing association every day or every other day, but they tell me I have to wait a year now before they will consider rehousing me.

Brian Clarke, housing manager at the association, said: "We don't force anyone to take tenancies."

But he added: "In the circumstances, we could waive the 12 months' wait for a transfer. She could be considered with other people also in desperate need of a house if something becomes available."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.