Ahmed Ouazib, 56, is fed up with EDF's failure to reconnect him

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A man who has had no electricity for the past week has thanked neighbours for helping to keep his tank of fish alive. Ahmed Ouazib, 56, has been begging power company EDF to reconnect him after a week of demoralising "help" from automated customer service staff and 'AI bots' sending text messages.

Ahmed, who lives in Kimberley Road, Evington, Leicester, suddenly lost power on Thursday, August 11, two weeks after switching to a new smart meter. He said: "The power company keeps suggesting things - press this, press that - and I've tried everything but I still have no power.

"They don't know why I have no power. I said they should send an engineer but they won't.

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"And I'd like to speak to someone on the phone because I'm dyslexic and find texting harder but they won't do that either. And to begin with it was just AI bots I was dealing with. It's so frustrating."

With no power to his fish tank, some of Ahmed's 10 fish began showing signs of distress. He called his upstairs neighbour, who kindly offered to let him share her electricity.

Ahmed said: "I'm so lucky to have such great neighbours. My upstairs neighbour said I could use her electricity and another neighbour lent me his extension cable.

"So I have a long cable going out of her window upstairs and into my window on the ground floor. Some of the fish were floating up to the surface trying to get more oxygen so I think it's saved their lives.

"Without power for the pump, there's not enough oxygen in the tank and the water also slowly turns toxic."

He showed LeicestershireLive a long text conversation that had been going on for the past week with EDF personnel and an AI bot called eNZO. He added: "They just don't care. You can't help but lose your temper about it.

"I'm so lucky I have gas still and such good neighbours - I wouldn't wish this on anyone else."

LeicestershireLive contacted EDF's press office on Thursday morning but has had no response from the company.