A WOMAN who was rescued from a fire that killed her elderly neighbour is still living with the sight and smell of the blaze.

Eunice Barry is one of several Enfield Homes tenants who are bitter that the smoke damage in their homes and communal hallway has not been cleared up more than three months after the deadly fire.

Fred Sanger, 71, died from smoke inhalation in the fire which started in his flat on the fifth floor of Curtis House on the Ladderswood Estate, Ladderswood Way, on April 11.

Police at first treated his death as murder but the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to pursue the case when it was decided the testimony of his flatmate Dionne Moy, who said at first she started the fire, could not be trusted.

Miss Moy, a woman in her 40s who was severely burnt in the fire, made the claims while heavily sedated on morphine in Broomfield Hospital's Burns unit in Chelmsford.

An open verdict was recorded at his inquest on July 17.

But the fifth floor of Curtis House remains smoke blackened.

The residents demanded that the Enfield Homes' chief executive Bob Heapy do something to clean their surroundings at a public meeting held in Grove Road Christian Centre in New Southgate on Friday.

Neighbour Eunice Barry, 45, said the fire had started while she was asleep and the only reason she escaped alive was that her 13-year-old son had stayed up late and smelt the fumes.

The ASDA shop assistant said when he woke her she could already see the smoke coming into her flat.

"We didn't know what to do, we couldn't go outside, we were really scared.

"Then the fireman came along he said hold your hands together and crawl along the floor.

"They led us out. We couldn't see anything, only smoke."

Miss Barry said she was deeply upset to learn that Mr Sanger had died in the fire as he had been a good neighbour to her since she moved in in 1996.

And now because nobody has come to clean up the fire damage she has to live with the memory of the fire every day.

"It's awful, we had to wash all the clothes, bed clothes and curtains but you can still see the stains in the flat. It stinks," she said.

"I'm disgusted. If I'm behind with my rent for just a few weeks I'm threatened with eviction but they are not doing anything about this."

Mr Heapy said the clean-up had been delayed by the police investigation into the fire and insurance tussles.

"There was a police investigation which took six or seven weeks. We weren't allowed to touch anything in the vicinity of the fire," he said.

Mr Heapy added that after that the clean up was delayed further because of a dispute over who would pay for it between Enfield Homes and its insurers.

But he pledged to wait no longer for a resolution to the problem and send a team to deep clean the fifth floor within two weeks.

"We're now in a position that we have instructed our guys to do it," he said.

"It's an issue of liability. Of course it's disappointing it has taken that long."