A DISTRESSED mum-of-two has likened having her house renovated by Enfield Homes to being burgled.

Mrs Catherine Healey, 50, of The Approach, Carterhatch Lane, Enfield, said she felt “violated” by the “diabolical” behaviour of Enfield Homes contractors who have been refitting her kitchen, bathroom and re-wiring her two-bedroom terraced house for the past month.

Mrs Healey claimed she came home to find water running from a kitchen pipe on to the floor, an ornament smashed, grout smeared over the living-room floor, nails sticking out of floorboards and her doors and windows left unlocked for five days in a row.

She said: “It’s as if I have had a burglary. If I had known it would be like this I would not have bothered. I’m quite a hardy kind of woman but it’s nearly had me in tears.”

Mrs Healey also had to buy a new telephone after her phone lead was broken and replace a child catch on a first-floor bedroom window.

She also claimed her ten-year-old twin daughters were forced to sleep on a sofa and the floor because their beds had been taken apart.

She said: “I came back at 8.45pm and the girls were getting ready for bed. We found all three beds, which are fixed together with big bolts at both ends, had been dismantled.

“I couldn’t put them back so we all slept downstairs.”

Mrs Healey said she felt forced to take five days off from her job as a ward housekeeper at Chase Farm Hospital, in Enfield, to check up on the contractors.

The news comes a week after the Independent revealed Enfield Homes failed to gain £137 million in Government funding designated for upgrades to homes because it was not deemed to be up to scratch by the Audit Commission.

The organisation, which manages all the council’s housing stock, was deemed not to have done enough to communicate with residents.

Mrs Healey, who telephoned Enfield Homes staff several times to complain, claimedd: “I got nowhere, no-one was listening to what I had to say.

"A manager came to look and said it was unacceptable and she would give the staff a telling-off. But then next day on the phone, she said, 'Mrs Healey I know it is all very invasive but just look at the end product, it will be lovely.' Well how patronising.”

A spokeswoman for Enfield Homes declined to comment on the individual claims made by Mrs Healey, but said: “Enfield Homes is committed to providing good-quality services to all our residents, and as such, we aim to resolve any problems or formal complaints as soon as they arise.

“We are in contact with Mrs Healey and are in the process of working with our contractors Apollo to ensure that the outstanding issues relating to the works being carried out at her home are dealt with swiftly.

“As an organisation we are committed to learning from complaints and we will use the findings from this situation to assist in the delivery of our services.”