A PENSIONER who refused to move back into her home despite an £80,000 renovation paid for by the council, was evicted from her flat yesterday.

Flo Giblett, 78, spent last night at a friend's house after Southampton City Council chiefs and the courts finally lost patience and brought in the bailiffs.

The grandmother-of-two was sent away from her temporary Holly Oak Court flat in a car packed with belongings.

However, her furniture had to remain behind because bailiffs discovered an infestation of human fleas that will need fumigating. But defiant Flo continued to dig her heels in. She will not step foot inside the three-bedroom Park Road home where she lived for 40 years and told the Daily Echo: "The house is not fit for human habitation. If I stay there, I will die."

The three-year row began when civic bosses came up with an £80,000 grant to renovate Flo's home, the biggest improvement grant ever put forward by the council.

Work was completed in April 2002 - but Flo refused to move in after claiming the floors were uneven, the rendering was poor quality and she could not climb the newly-fitted stairs.

She was offered a council flat instead, but in July last year bosses started eviction proceedings after Flo failed to pay rent. Yesterday, in an eleventh-hour bid to stay in the one-bedroom Holly Oak Court flat, Flo went to Southampton County Court to try to overturn the eviction order.

She told the court: "I am in serious danger of dying if I get turned out."

A spokesman for Southampton City Council said: "Mrs Giblett faces a choice. She may either move back to her home in Park Road - a property which has been extensively renovated at the taypayers' expense - or pay her rent, settle the debt and stay in her council accommodation."