A WIDOWED pensioner has received an apology from a council after it failed to fix her flooded home.

Council tenant Catherine Bell says she and her disabled daughter were forced to live in squalor after a series of mix-ups.

The 66-year-old's woes began when a water pipe in her kitchen burst and flooded the whole of the downstairs of her home.

Firemen called in to stop the flood, had to empty water-filled buckets out of the house and into the street.

And because the council had blocked the water mains cover while resurfacing the road, firemen had to bend the burst pipe in the kitchen to stop the flow.

Despite being called six times to come and fix the problems caused by the flood, Lewisham Council failed to even log the job until nearly three weeks later.

During this time, Mrs Bell was twice visited by council officials but still nothing was done.

This meant Mrs Bell and her daughter Karen, 45, who has Down's Syndrome, had to live in water-damaged property without knowing when help was coming.

Mrs Bell, who has lived in the property in Farmfield Road, Downham, for 38 years, said: "The past three weeks have been smelly, messy and degrading.

"It has put me in a mode of depression and I have also picked up a chest infection, which I believe is due to the damp."

She added: "I was up to my ankles in water and I'm now walking on bare wood as the carpets had to be thrown out.

"There is also a whopping great hole behind the cooker. The smell is disgusting. It really stinks.

"I'm a pensioner and me and my daughter should not have to deal with this on our own."

A Lewisham Council spokesman said: "We are sorry Mrs Bell has had to wait for so long. We have an electronic system which logs jobs but it has been experiencing technical difficulties in the last week.

"We have sent someone down to finally rectify the situation."

The council has now promised to re-concrete the property's floor and replace what was damaged by the flood.

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