A SOUTHAMPTON councillor has said the city council is “stuck between a rock and a hard place” in regards to 98-year-old neighbour from hell Mary Plaisted.

As revealed in yesterday’s Daily Echo, council bosses are trying to evict Mrs Plaisted after bringing misery to residents of a sheltered housing block for ten years.

Her catalogue of antisocial behaviour includes banging on the windows and doors of her neighbours’ flats at all hours, assaulting council staff and carers with a walking stick and yelling obscene remarks.

Her telephone was cut off after she made hundreds of calls to police for no reason, and social services removed her emergency call button after she raised the alarm 500 times in one month.

Coxford ward Labour councillor Don Thomas said: “I have been working with residents for the past 12 months.

“This state of affairs is extremely complex. One’s natural instinct to a 98-year-old is to be compassionate and leave well alone. But of course the problem is that things are not all well.

“The council is stuck between a rock and a hard place with this situation.”