At the age of 84, Joan Reed is happy to live the quiet life in her Wolverhampton flat.

So it came as a bit of a shock when the pensioner received a letter from housing bosses demanding she stop playing loud music into the early hours – despite her not even owning a stereo.

The outraged grandmother-of-two was also told to stop parking on a grass verge outside her flat in the Tettenhall area, despite never owning a car or being able to drive.

Her son-in-law Dave Truran said today: “She hardly ever leaves her flat and so to receive this letter has caused her a lot of distress. She is a wonderful woman who would never cause any trouble and they could have surely checked her age before writing to accuse her.”

Wolverhampton Homes said it had sent out the letter after receiving complaints from a neighbour about noise coming from the flat.

Helen Bellingham, head of home sales and leases, said: “In these cases it may not be the tenant causing problems but visitors.

“Mrs Reed has contacted us and we have now gone back to the initial tenant who made the complaint to investigate further and have apologised to Mrs Reed.”