THE Southampton pensioner who has been living with a mystery voice for the past three months is still no closer to learning its source.

Puzzled Alfred Mansbridge has been woken at 1.55 every morning for more than three months by a chilling and very unwelcome house 'guest' who seems to be reciting the phrase "I won't take the lift down" over and over again for 15 seconds.

The 69-year-old became convinced the voice, which sounds as if it belongs to a young man, was coming from one of the two City Council-installed smoke alarms in his Millbrook home.

But after calling out council engineers on Tuesday night to replace the alarm situated on his upstairs landing, he is still able to hear the voice and continues to be deprived of a good night's sleep.

"I'm getting really fed up with this," said Alfred. "I just want this voice out of my house. I really thought it was coming from the upstairs smoke alarm. I thought the engineers who fitted it may have played a joke on me but the ones who came out to replace it said they didn't know what I was talking about.

"I'm going to get the other alarm in the lounge changed as well, but I really don't think that's going to make much difference."

Alfred's neighbours, who all had the same smoke alarms fitted just over three months ago, have heard a tape recording of the voice made by Alf, which left them also scratching their heads over the source.

Since the Daily Echo broke the story of Alfred's mystery voice last week and a reporter heard it for himself, the former milkman has also been bombarded with calls and visits from locals.

"I've had children coming around wanting to see the ghost late at night when they should have been in bed, and people stopping me in the street to talk about it. This has gone beyond a joke."

A spokesman for Southampton City Council confirmed that engineers would be returning to Mr Mansbridge's home to inspect the lounge smoke alarm.

If the voice remains after that, there may be no choice but to get the Ghostbusters team over on the first available flight from America.