Residents of an isolated trailer park in the East Kootenay say they've had to boil their water for five years, and complain that the Interior Health Authority hasn't done enough to deal with the problem.

Roy Remillard, who owns the Caithness Mobile Home Park – about halfway between Cranbrook and Fernie – said he has spent more than $40,000 on a new chlorination system and new wells.

But retired nurse Patricia Floyd, who has lived at the trailer park for more than eight years, said that hasn't fixed the problem.

"The water comes out of the shed chlorinated, but the old water lines at this end of the park, they're 40 or 50 years old, and they're cracked and they leak, and we get live creatures coming out of our taps."

Floyd said she regularly picks small hair-sized worms out of her cloudy tap water, which she wouldn't dream of drinking straight from the tap.

"First I filter water, then I boil it, because it's not safe to drink. We've been under a boil-water order since 2004, and a boil-water advisory since 2001."

Floyd said she thinks the problem is in the old underground pipes at the park. But Remillard said he has no plans to replace them

Landlords in B.C are required by law to provide tenants with potable water. But a spokesperson for the Interior Health Authority said they haven't taken any action in this case because there are only a handful of inspectors to deal with more than 600 water systems in the Kootenay region alone.

Floyd said she's had enough. She is selling her trailer at a loss and moving out at the end of the month.