SIX paper snowflakes dangle in the front windows, but there is no

snow, no fir tree, no tinsel: just a sea of sludge-brown water where the

front and back gardens and the ground floor of the house used to be.

Robert McKay was wearing his tracksuit trousers pulled up to the knee

and paddling barefoot. ''No, I'm no' cold, it's fine when you get used

to it.''

However unseasonably mild, it is still Paisley in December. He has

four children aged from three to 12 convinced that Santa is more than

equal to a bit of water in the living room.

''We moved in on December 23 last year, just in time for Christmas and

we thought this was a great house. We won't be celebrating Christmas in

it this year. I would not be surprised if the family is out of the house

for six months,'' he said.

0 Edward Farrell, 52, said: ''The three-piece suite is destroyed, the

carpets are wrecked and we're still paying for them all. Insurance? We

cannae afford insurance. We'll need to start all over again.''

The most bitter aspect to the flooding at Ferguslie Park is that the

worst-affected houses are all new or refurbished.

The neat development of semi-detached two-storey houses in Blackstone

Road with front and back doors might grace the glossy brochure of any

modern developer. This is the new Ferguslie Park, built by the Ferguslie

Park Housing Association on the site of demolished council houses.

A proportion of houses are adapted for elderly and disabled people:

because they all have ground floor flats and bungalows they have been

the worst-affected.

Lynn McCulloch, director of the Ferguslie Park Housing Association,

said structural damage would be covered by the association's insurance,

but tenants would be liable for their own belongings.