Elderly Tarrawanna woman forced to live in foul floodwater-soaked unit

For almost a month she'd been forced to live in her community housing unit that begun smelling within days of the deluge that dropped around 250 millimetres of rain on the Illawarra on April 6.

Her Caldwell Avenue unit is managed by Hume Community Housing which organised a contractor to install dehumidifiers to dry out the carpet in both bedrooms.

"They put in blowers in there for 10 days, one in each bedroom, they ran 24 hours-a-day," Ms Lee said.

The carpet took weeks to dry, but it still stunk and Ms Lee said HCH told her she'd have to wait until the planned annual inspection on May 17 for any further assessment and consideration on replacing the carpets. That's when her neighbour contacted the Mercury for help.

"Nobody's doing anything, I'm pissed off because no-one's doing their job," Ms Lee said.

"I had to take everything out of the cupboards because otherwise it'd smell."

On Thursday, May 2 when the Mercury visited, clothing, linen and keepsakes from the spare room were piled high in her kitchen and Ms Lee was clearly frustrated.

The neighbours who'd helped clear the floodwaters out of her unit had also helped her clear the items out of her carpeted bedrooms.

"I feel depressed more than anything," she said. "I've got no idea if they're going to replace the carpet, I've got no idea what they're doing."

That afternoon the Mercury contacted HCH, and within hours Ms Lee received a call from Hume to let her know its asset team and a contractor would visit the following day.

She also received a bunch of flowers from HCH for the "stress and inconvenience caused", Ms Lee said.

By Monday morning the carpet in both bedrooms had been replaced.

"I'm very grateful ... the day you came here, that night they rang me," Ms Lee said.