AN elderly widow claims home improvement work which cost her most of her savings has been left unfinished.

But the local company doing the job blame the pensioner for the delay, and claim she was never in when workmen called.

Mrs Alice Cain, aged 89, of Kingsley Street, Halliwell claims that at one point she did not see any workmen for more than two weeks, and was left with wires hanging out, and holes in walls and ceilings .

After the BEN contacted ABP Building Contractors of Halliwell Road, however, the boss Mr Barney Smith said that although he had taken instructions from Mrs Cain he had sub-contracted the work out to other firms.

He said: "At the end of the day she wanted a cheap job and she's got the electrics done for just £680 and that includes labour." Mrs Cain admitted that she "didn't want to pay out a fortune" but said she decided to have her home rewired, a convector heater in the bathroom, and a new back door.

She said: "They told me that I wouldn't know they'd been but by God I do know they've been. They've left the place a mess."

Mrs Cain said that on March 8 she paid the firm £400 in cash for the electrical work and later the same week gave them £460 in cash for the rest of the work plus £180 for a new back door.

But she said the bathroom light does not work and the dual switch in the upstairs back bedroom no longer works.

She added: "Because there were holes in the ceiling the new convector heater was a waste of time. The heat just went through the holes." She also claimed that she was promised a new hardwood back door with new locks. "But they've stuck on a cheap white door and used the old lock and hinges." And she rejected Mr Smith's claim that she was seldom at home.

The day after the BEN contacted the firm, a workman visited Mrs Cain's home. But she said he left "after filling in a few holes" saying he did not have the equipment to complete the unfinished work.

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