AN ELDERLY widow has finally had improvements to her home completed, after months of living in a dust-filled flat without a living room or bedroom.

Ann O'Sullivan of Goldsmith Road, Leyton, had been fighting to get her landlord Zulfiqau Ali to replace unsafe stairs.

Despite a tribunal ordering Mr Ali to replace them by October, his builders merely ripped the stairs, which lead to Mrs O'Sullivan's bedroom, out, leaving a hole.

Dust was falling in to the 70-year-old amateur artist's bedroom, making it uninhabitable.

The grandmother-of-four has been forced to sleep on a futon in a small room for the last few months.After being contacted by the Guardian Mr Ali pledged to complete the work within a fortnight and the stairs have been replaced.

Mrs O'Sullivan said: “I would like to thank the Guardian for their help, this whole ordeal has been terrible.”

But she said cleaning the property and removing the dust means she cannot celebrate Christmas at home and will have to stay at her sister's house.