Hundreds of people have been left in darkness as three power cuts in eight days have wreaked havoc on home life and work schedules.

Residents of Sholden Fields in Deal have had to shower at relatives’ houses, and do homework by torchlight as persistent outages have plagued the community since last Friday.

Kelly Siadatan, a mother-of-one, says she has had to empty her fridge three times because of the disruptions.

She said: “At a time when food is so expensive, we’ve been having to throw it all away.

“We’ve had the odd power cut before but nothing like this.

“It’s especially bad for this to happen on a Saturday night when we usually have family time.”

Residents were first cut off from the grid last Friday evening, due to what they have now been told was an underground fault with UK Power Network lines.

But with their electricity provided by SSE, which uses the same faulty infrastructure, getting updates on the situation has been a struggle.

“We just want it sorted, but we’re not being listened to,” said Mrs Siadatan, who works as a school teacher.

“We’ve just been getting bounced from pillar to post between the electricity providers.

“They say all the right things on the phone but they’re not doing enough to try to solve the problem.

“At a time when food is so expensive, we’ve been having to throw it all away…”

The loss of electricity has troubled families in a variety of ways.

Another resident named Martin relies on a sleep apnea machine to get proper rest.

Without power, he has not been able to sleep for three nights in the past eight days, which has made caring for his ill 22-month-old baby all the more difficult.

“My partner is really struggling with it too because the baby monitor is not working so she’s been sleeping on the landing so she can hear if the baby coughs,” he said.

“I work from home and rely on electricity 100% to do my job. Last Friday everything just went out.”

According to residents, Friday’s outage lasted for 21 hours, before SSE arranged for a generator to supply the affected area.

But by Sunday evening, the generator had run out of fuel and the lights were off once again.

The third outage began today at about 2.30pm. At the time of writing residents were still in darkness, awaiting a delivery of fuel expected at 1am tomorrow.

A spokesman from SSE said: “Our engineers are working to resolve an issue in Deal in Kent which has unfortunately led to around 200 people being without power.

“We expect back-up generation to be operational in the early hours of Sunday and are prioritising support for vulnerable households in the meantime.

“We would like to apologise for the inconvenience caused.”