Hi Guys,

I am not too sure if I can even ask this in here but I don't know where to look or how to go about things so I am hoping you can point me in the right direction.

We are currently renting a house in Tasmania and it has so many problems with it. To start with we had a MAJOR leak in the roof and with our constant hounding to the real estate 8 weeks later it got half fixed. Then not long after this, both myself, my husband and my 3 daughters aged 8 years, 3 years and 7 months all got severly ill and felt like death I will tell you now and we put it back to gastro but the most severe gastro you would ever come across and it got us thinking, maybe there was something in the new tin on the roof that was going into our water tank (our drinking water). So we got a water sample and had it tested by Tas Labs and they notified as so fast and demanded we do not drink the water as it is totally contaminated with both E.COLI and Coliforms at very dangerous levels so we contacted the real estate in hopes that it would be fixed within 24 hours but now, not the case! We have had to take it on ourselves to have both the roof, gutters & tank cleaned out and it is being charged to us. And not only that, our power bills have all been over $1100, the last one being just under $1200 because of the faulty pumps that are running for the water from the water tank and the spear, one especially in a dangerous way due to the electrics laying in water which causes the safety switch for the power to cut out so we are without power a lot of the time and needing to dangerously put our lives at risk trying to get the electrics up out of the water. So the man who did the roof and tank does pumps as well and as soon as I explained the whole story to him he was quick to change the most dangerous pump with his own while he fixes it and he will then do the same when he needs to do the water tank one but now the real estate are jumping up and down because we took the step forward for our family's saftey. By the sounds of things, it's going to be up to us to pay for the whole cleaning and fixing of the pumps. Personally I think this is wrong and I am wondering what and how do I go about making this right? We are on a one parent income and the costs are so bad that we can't keep up with anything anymore and with these power bills for one, we just can't pay them on time and for this our power will be turned off in a few days. I just don't know what or where to turn too. I think it is all so wrong that nothing is being done, especially when it is my children's life at risk.

Thanks heaps for any info you can give me. I just don't know what to do anymore. Maybe it is a Tasmanian thing? We moved here 18 months ago from Central Victoria and I will tell you now, the real estate are much quicker and are actually concerned for a persons safety. Are things different down here?

Cheers, Tara