Nagwa Ibrahim and Khalled Habboush outside their home with some of their ruined belongings

A FAMILY home was severely damaged after water poured through its walls and electric sockets during council repair works.

Nagwa Ibrahim and Khalled Habboush spent a night scrambling to save their family heirlooms while their children huddled together in one room after their block in Radford House, Holloway, flooded on Friday.

The family said the flood started after a council contractor had come in that day to replace a cold water cistern on the roof.

Mr Habboush and Ms Ibrahim were alarmed when water began spurting through the light sockets, down the walls and out through their plug points after the job was completed.

By 4.30pm a “waterfall” was cascading down the communal steps and neighbours had called the Town Hall to complain.

At around 9pm a council plumber arrived but the water kept pouring through their home all night.

An electrician arrived at about 1am and found their “electricity box hot and steaming” before cutting the supply to the flat. By 9am the following morning a plumber arrived again and turned off the water pump. The couple’s second-floor home now lies in ruins with their belongings soaked and the stench of damp heavy in the air.

Inside the flat where water came through a light socket

The council provided the family with a hostel room in Hornsey Road. Teachers at their children’s schools, Duncombe Primary and St Mary Magdalene Academy, contacted Ms Ibrahim on Monday, concerned that her children were “very anxious” about what had happened and had struggled in school that day. Alarmingly, two of her children also suffered nose bleeds.

Ms Ibrahim said: “Our lives and our children’s lives were put at risk. I am so angry and fed up with this. The schools have sent letters with concern for my kids’ health.”

The family returned to their damp flat on Tuesday to sleep in a room that had largely escaped the flooding.
By Wednesday, the council had offered them a temporary place to stay in neighbouring Westminster.

Mr Habboush, who works as a labourer, said: “Our home is ruined and my family has been traumatised.

“I have taken every day off work this week.

“We must have answers on why this happened.”

An Islington Council spokeswoman said their housing team was in touch with the family “as soon as their situation was reported” to them and “immediately looked for temporary housing”.

A spokesman for contractors HSL Compliance, who carried out the original work on the water tank, said: “We had engineers working on Friday. We were made aware on Saturday morning that a tank had leaked.

“We are carrying out an internal investigation to find how that happened and we have referred the matter to our insurers.”