Waiau residents say they're fed up with bureaucracy giving a false picture of their rebuild.

It's six months tomorrow since the 7.8 quake was centred beside the North Canterbury town.

The 250 residents still have to boil their water, and few homes are fixed.

Waiau School Principal Mary Kimber said her roll has dropped from 55 to 34 pupils, after families left town.

She said road works are one of the biggest problems for the kids remaining because the bus trips are slower.

Some students leave home around 7:30 and don't get back until after 5pm.

Resident Julie Wells said recovery leaders based out of the district still don't really understand what it's like.

"You can't fly in and have a look at one building and say we've been there done that, go on TV and say we're doing all of this when you're not. Do you get out and talk to the people? No you don't."

Waiau School Principal Mary Kimber agrees.

"Occasionally people are getting up in public arenas outside Waiau and telling that Waiau is doing really well, when it's not. There are deep-seated needs.

"Waiua has been forgotten in many ways because if you're not living in the earthquake area you don't really think about it," Ms Kimber said.

Ms Wells feels the same way.

"A lot of us actually think we are the forgotten ones because it's all about poor Kaikoura. Kaikoura's earthquake, Kaikoura this. We had more damage than they did."

The insurance process is much slower than she'd expected, Ms Wells said.

The insurance companies have only really started talking to us now and starting to set up. What have they learnt from Christchurch? They haven't."

Ms Kimber's going into winter with a broken chimney and fire and she said it doesn't make sense.

"Waiau's one of the coldest places in the Canterbury, if not the South Island in winter. I would shut school every year a couple of days for snow. Many of us haven't got heating in our homes, let alone broken homes. That's the norm.

"We're much smaller than Christchurch one in terms of the number of people so why is it so hard? I just wonder what the learning is."