AN angry council tenant is seeking action from Thurrock Council over shoddy work at her home - and an incident that ended with her tiny pet dog losing a leg!

Emma Wingrave of Gordon Road, Horndon on the Hill, says she has been devastated by the injury to her Pomeranian Oakley.

The council has been upgrading the bathroom and kitchen at her home but the work, being carried out by United Living under contract to the council, has been long and arduous.

Emma says: "The standard of work to upgrade the bathroom is appalling and has already taken 46 days and is nowhere near finished."

The workman is also accused of leaving cigarette butts all over the garden, raiding the family kitchens for tea, coffee, milk biscuits etc without asking.

And he is accused of generally being rude and disrespectful to the tenant - who has a young primary school daughter living with her.

The final straw was the injury to her dog last week, which Emma believes was caused by the workman.

She says: "Unfortunately we never know when the workmen are going to return, it's haphazard. I work and am not at always at home so they have access to a key to let themselves in.

"We have a couple of dogs in the house which are normally left out but if we know the workmen are coming we put them in a cage so they are safe and don't cause a problem for the workers.

"However, we came home last week to find the workers had been in. The dogs had been loose and we noticed straight away that Oakley was limping badly.

"We went straight to the vets and found there were a number of broken bones in the paw.

"Unfortunately the vet said that there was so much damage and the wound so severe that the leg couldn't be saved so we had to make the decision to have it amputated.

"Aside from the distress and horror of this incident it has cost a lot of money, which we can't really afford.

"Oakley is a tiny dog and it's not hard to imagine what happened. He's not big or strong enough to do such damage to himself."

The incident has been reported to the police, who are looking into it.

Emma has met twice with the council's housing liaison officer but says there is no indication of responsibility and no apology.

As far as she is aware no action has been taken against the workers who visited.

A council spokesperson declined to comment on the incident to Thurrock NubNews, saying: "Thurrock Council is unable to comment on individual cases. If any complaints are received regarding a service then the council will always investigate fully and work with all involved to establish the facts and take any appropriate action."