An elderly woman claims she has spent eight years battling with her neighbour over the removal of "junk" in a shared passageway.

Nellie Nacey, 88, says she fears fencing, furniture and scrap guttering dumped beside her York council home could topple over and injure her.

Nellie has been writing to York MP Hugh Bayley and City of York Council as well as the police and fire service since 1995 to try and get the situation solved.

But although council officers have threatened her neighbour with legal action, they have now admitted they are unwilling to pursue the matter in court as it would be "potentially very costly".

The widowed pensioner, who has lived in the house in Rawdon Avenue, Tang Hall, for 66 years, said she feels like a "second-class citizen" and is at the end of her tether. But her neighbour Joan Walls, 70, says she was the one being victimised, and that every time she returned from holiday Mrs Nacey and her family have caused more trouble for her.

Mrs Nacey said: "We could be really good neighbours. I am very easy going, but I don't seem to be able to get through at all."

She claims the scrap, which she says has also included bed headboards, firewood and rubbish, blocks access to her garden, crashes against her home in strong winds, and is a fire hazard.

She said that as a council tenant she could face eviction for blocking the passageway, but her neighbour, who owns her home, can get away with it.

But Miss Walls, who is involved with the local Neighbourhood Watch scheme and several local committees, says she just wants some peace and quiet and had done nothing wrong. She said: "This has been going on for years. I've never caused problems for other people, but for the last few years I have had nothing but problems from next door. I live here alone, I have no family, I nursed my father here for 13 years.

"There is a fencing panel in the passageway and some wood. At some stage when I can get someone to help me I want to put the fencing in the garden, but I can't do it myself. I'm absolutely gobsmacked over this, I just can't believe it."

A spokesman for City of York Council said: "This is a long-running issue and we have tried to mediate between the two parties for some time.

"However, there is very little we can do legally. This is a neighbour dispute and one of the two people involved is not a council tenant so our hands are tied."

Updated: 09:11 Saturday, March 01, 2003