A SINGLE mum said she feels let down by housing bosses who allowed her to move into a “dangerous” home where water was leaking through the walls.

Hayley Crew, 42, had to move out of a privately rented house where she had been for nine years after the landlords decided to sell up last October.

After ten months of being on Colchester Council’s housing waiting list, Ms Crew and her four children aged between 9and 18 were handed the keys to a house in Patmore Road, Colchester, last week.

But huge issues with the state of the home were discovered as soon as she went in and only got worse overnight.

She said: “I went to the council to get help last October and eventually last week they came up with this house which would be temporary until something permanent came up.

“I had an appointment at the offices where they handed over the keys.

“As soon as I opened the door I could see something was wrong – there was water coming through the ceiling.

“I called them straight away and they told me there had been checks the week before and done all the checks.

“It was so bad I had to put buckets out to collect it.

“The next day I had to call emergency plumbing out because it was getting worse – there was water coming from the walls and the plug sockets.

“Somebody came round pretty quickly and said they thought it was outrageous.

“Eventually they had to pull part of the ceiling down because they thought it was dangerous.”

Since then Colchester Borough Homes have managed to stop the leaking, but Ms Crew, who works as a receptionist in A&E at Colchester General Hospital, is still concerned about the exposed ceiling, huge amounts of mould and a missing smoke alarm.

She said: “I cannot believe it has been let out like this.

“I’m so disgusted and feel really let down.

“It is dangerous – what if one of my children had come down before me and switched on a light which was soaking wet?

“I work and pay into the state and on this occasion I just needed a little bit of help.”

A Colchester Borough Homes spokesman said: “We have supported Hayley Crew and her young family with the provision of temporary accommodation in a four-bedroom home which we are leasing from a private landlord. It is not council property.

“The property was inspected on Friday, before Hayley moved in on Monday, but a leak was detected when she took up residence, which was repaired within a day.

“This caused some damage to a ceiling, which will be repaired as soon as it dries.

“We are satisfied that the property is safe to occupy, and will deal with the remaining repairs as soon as possible.”