HIGH Wycombe resident Paul Buckingham has been trying for weeks to resolve the issue of the destroyed ceiling tiles at his mother’s Maida Vale home and is at breaking point.

Large silver tarps, weighed down by sandbags at their perimeters, covered the holes on roofs along Maida Vale’s Emerald Court left by a tornado that blasted the area last month.

“The recent tornado that hit Maida Vale tore a chunk of my mother’s roof off,” Mr Buckingham said.

“She’s disabled and my father who was her carer died and let the insurance lapse after a long illness and I’m the only person she has.

“It’s shameful for me as a son because I can’t help more.

“She’s got all the tiles on the roof missing every night when it does rain, like it did the last two nights.

“I stay awake crying because the water just pours into her house.

“There’s a tarp up that emergency services put up for her, but it doesn’t keep the water out – it runs straight underneath it.”

Echo News visited the Maida Vale residence to investigate the extent of the damage.

Apart from the hole in the roof tiling, inside the ceiling was bowing under the weight of the insulation forming cracks along surface.

Metal rods propped up the ceiling to stop it from collapsing and water ingress was beginning to run dangerously close to electrical wiring in the shower.

The threat of being shocked has meant Mr Buckingham’s mother Annette Neilsen for the past month has used a bowl to fill with water to shower instead of using the showerhead.

Emergency services paid multiple visits to the property since the severe weather event to resecure the tarp which had blown off but Mr Buckingham said they’ve since notified him that they would no longer be visiting.

Mr Buckingham had been looking at moving his mother to a shelter in the hopes that they would be able to find temporary housing, but all facilities were at capacity.

He said it was hardly the living circumstances befitting a woman that had lived her life volunteering and giving back to the community around her.

“Both my parents always helped others, whether it was through rotary work, taking in sick people or Dad fixing cars for free,” Mr Buckingham said.

“We’re not greedy people and we’ve never asked for help before.

“Our family has a long history of volunteering and helping others and even now, my partner spends much of her time helping other people through her disability community work.

“If this were my own house, I wouldn’t ask for help – I’d just live with it but this is for my mum.

“She’s the only family I have left since dad died recently, and our extended family isn’t there.

“Mum was adopted and family members cut ties once we were out in the world as our own people.

“But now, when we need help, it feels like nobody wants to know.”

Mr Buckingham said he wanted to honour his father’s final wish for him to take care of his mother but as his health had declined in recent years and with financial constraints, he found it difficult not to give in to a sense of helplessness.

“It might just come to a point where I need to learn how to tile the roof and get up there myself,” Mr Buckingham said.

“The problem is I used to be fit too, but I’ve developed disease after disease.

“I was in security and corrections for my entire working life, but I’ve been slowly degrading for probably the last 10 years and it’s getting worse.

“My spine has two inverted discs after a fall, and I’ve gained a heap of weight, so I’m worried about my balance on a roof.”

Mr Buckingham has started a GoFundMe page titled Emergency roof repairs for my disabled mother in Perth WA with a final goal of $5852.

Although the amount would not cover the cost of repairing the ceiling, or rewiring the electrical sections in the roof, Mr Buckingham said he wanted to at least prevent his mother from sleeping in a leaking house.

“You can’t repair anything internal until the roof is closed,” he said.

“Even if all the insulation is removed, water will just keep pouring in.

“All I want is to get the roof fixed so Mum can stay safe in her home in Maida Vale where I grew up with them.”

The webpage for the fundraiser can be accessed online here.