PENSIONER Jeannie Thornhill has had a cold and miserable week after her central heating went off.

Last night, the 66-year-old spent what she said was her tenth night in a row without heating or hot water, huddling next to a “pathetic” electric heater she said she had been given by her housing association.

When her heating engineer arrived a day early, on Thursday, January 23, she thought her problems were over – even more so when he told her he had discovered just in time that the rusted flue on her boiler needed to be replaced straight away.

Yet she says the replacement work has yet to take place.

Mrs Thornhill, who has lived in the house in Coupland Road, Wootton, outside Abingdon, for five years, and worked as a carer for Oxfordshire County Council for 12 years, said: “I just find it ridiculous. I have been angry all week.”

Housing association Sovereign Vale has told Mrs Thornhill it will be sending a heating surveyor to her today, and she says she may have her central heating back by tomorrow night.

Sovereign Vale did not comment when approached.