FREEZING pensioner Anne Ching is feeling hot and bothered after being left out in the cold with no hot water or heating at her council-owned sheltered accommodation.

Mrs Ching fears she may burn her flat down by using an electric heater at night because she has been left without proper heating in freezing temperatures since the start of the new year.

The 72-year-old, of Parsonage Close, High Wycombe, has spent weeks freezing with no heating or hot water in her sheltered accommodation.

This week she fell asleep leaving the electric heater on all night and although nothing happened, she fears next time she might not be so lucky.

She said the New Year 'rang in with a bang all right' when her heating broke down on January 2.

Since then a small electric heater has been her only source of heat.

She said: "This is supposed to be sheltered accommodation where they care about what happens to us. I've been left here to perish in the freezing cold. If I put the heater on I have to watch it less I forget and a fire burns the house down. I can only have a wash down with cold water it's been just horrible."

She complained to Wycombe District Council who told her to contact the contractors, NWM UK Ltd, direct.

"They came out once with the wrong parts so couldn't fix it and I haven't heard anything from them since," she added.

A spokesman for Wycombe District Council said: "The tenant has been left with an alternative heating source and has access to hot water. A contractor will be visiting the property and will have the problem fixed early next week."

A spokesman for NWM UK Ltd declined to comment.