The elderly residents of a sheltered housing block claim gangs of schoolchildren have turned their lives into a living hell.

Terrified pensioners in Brad-ford Moor say they have been subjected to a sustained campaign of abuse which has included thugs defecating on their doorsteps and knocking on their doors late at night to deliver a tirade of foul-mouthed insults.

They claim fires have been started in their gardens, drains ripped from their roofs and vicious dogs set on their pets.

Young yobs in the area have also been accused of tearing up pensioners' gardens on motorbikes and setting fire to a stolen car abandoned in the street over the weekend.

Kathleen Piff, a 57-year-old disabled widow who lives at the Bradford Council-run block in Moorfield Avenue, says children as young as ten are responsible and trouble begins as soon as the children are let out of school.

She said: "We shouldn't have to live like this. Most people around here are terrified and those who can are considering moving out. One elderly man, who can hardly walk, answered his door earlier this week to find a gang of kids stood there laughing at him.

"The parents around here just do not care what their children are doing to us."

Great-grandmother Velta Connolly, a 77-year-old widow, has lived in her ground-floor flat for the past 11 years.

"I have stopped going out and I will not answer my door," she said. "I caught a teenager trying to break into my bedroom not long ago. I am an old woman, I don't want any trouble."

Margaret Gillings has tried to set up a Neighbourhood Watch scheme to tackle the problem.

She said: "Their behaviour is absolutely sickening. My elderly next-door neighbour has found human excrement on her doorstep and another time she found a teenager with his trous-ers round his ankles. We tell the police but they do nothing."

Councillor Mohammad Yaqoob (Bradford Moor/Lab) said he would write to the police on the residents' behalf. "This kind of behaviour is not acceptable in any civilised society," he said. "In my day we used to help our elderly neighbours and have respect for them. The world has changed and not for the better."

A spokesman for Bradford council said: "We are aware of anti-social behaviour and vandalism from youths in the area and security fencing has been erected as a deterrent. We would urge residents to report any incidents to the police.