Emergency Heating Appeal – Help Keep Our Sanctuary Cats Warm 🐾❤️

On Monday, 26th October, our boiler finally gave up, leaving our family home and the cats at Karen's Cat Community without central heating or hot water.

Unfortunately, our boiler has been troublesome for years, particularly during the colder months. We've regularly experienced problems with it locking out and needing to be reset. Usually, an annual service helps get it running properly again, although increasingly it feels like we're just putting a plaster over a bigger problem.

This year, we'd fallen behind on arranging our service as our regular heating engineer had been away. We'd been experiencing repeated lockouts over recent weeks and had already contacted him to arrange a visit as soon as he could fit us in.

Unfortunately, the boiler couldn't wait any longer.

Why this is an emergency ❤️

Our sanctuary isn't a large purpose-built rescue centre. It's our family home, which we've opened up to cats in need of rescue, rehabilitation and lifelong sanctuary.

Many of our cats have additional medical needs, and keeping them warm, safe and comfortable is incredibly important, particularly as the temperatures drop here in Mid Wales.

Our family also lives with several chronic health conditions. Karen has fibromyalgia and osteoarthritis, Gman has arthritis and a torn shoulder, and Lauren has Type 1 diabetes.

Being without reliable heating and hot water isn't just uncomfortable. It creates additional difficulties for our health, our daily care routines and the welfare of the cats who depend on us.

What happened with the emergency engineer?

On Monday, we desperately tried to find a local engineer who could attend as an emergency, but nobody was available. Eventually, we found an engineer based approximately an hour away who agreed to come out. We were relieved that somebody was willing to help.

Unfortunately, the visit didn't go as we'd hoped.

The engineer arrived considerably later than expected, and during the visit there were issues involving the boiler's wiring and the electrical supply tripping. He subsequently raised safety concerns about the flue and oil line and declined to restart the boiler.

We fully appreciate that heating safety must come first, and we would never knowingly operate an unsafe boiler. However, after speaking with another heating professional, we have questions about the findings and have requested a written diagnostic report to clarify the situation.

We were charged approximately £300 for the visit, including travel, and are currently disputing aspects of that bill.

Despite this expense, we are still without a working boiler and now need to arrange and pay for another heating engineer to assess the situation and identify what repairs are necessary.

Keeping our cats warm 🐈

With the boiler still out of action, we couldn't afford to wait for heaters to arrive through the post. Living in rural Mid Wales, deliveries can sometimes take longer, and we needed to act immediately.

We therefore travelled to Screwfix and purchased emergency electric oil-filled radiators ourselves, prioritising the rooms where our cats live and sleep. We've also been using a camping shower to manage without our usual hot water.

We've had some wonderful offers from supporters wanting to purchase and send more. We are so grateful, but at this stage, financial donations would help us much more than additional heaters.

Why we're hoping to raise £1,000 ❤️

We've always tried to manage emergencies ourselves, but this has been an incredibly difficult and expensive few days.

Some of the emergency costs have already had to come from our personal overdraft, and we simply cannot continue absorbing unexpected bills like this.

We're hoping to raise £1,000 to help cover:

- The approximately £300 emergency engineer bill, which we're currently disputing.

- The emergency electric heaters we've already purchased to keep our sanctuary cats warm.

- The cost of another heating engineer visiting to properly assess and diagnose the boiler.

We don't yet know how much the repairs will cost, so £1,000 is our initial fundraising target to help us manage the immediate expenses and hopefully get our heating working again.

We want to be completely transparent: this emergency affects both our family home and our sanctuary cats. The heating system serves the household as well as the animals, and this fundraiser is intended to help us recover the immediate expenses and restore heating to the home we all share.

If any of the disputed engineer charges are refunded, or our circumstances change, we'll update our supporters and explain how donations are being used.

Can you help? ❤️

We know times are financially difficult for so many people, and we would never want anyone to put themselves under pressure to help us.

If you can spare even a small donation, it would be hugely appreciated. If you can't donate, simply sharing our fundraiser would mean just as much.

Since 2017, Karen's Cat Community has been dedicated to giving vulnerable cats a safe place to call home. Right now, we're just trying to make sure that home stays warm.

Thank you for standing by us, caring about our cats and supporting our little sanctuary through another unexpected challenge.

With love and gratitude,

Karen, Lauren, Gman and all the cats at Karen's Cat Community 🐾❤️