An elderly woman has survived being trapped in her bathroom in Paris for 20 days, after the door lock jammed.

The room had no window or phone so the 69-year-old was unable to tell anyone but she tapped on pipes during the night, hoping to alert her neighbours.

They thought the noise was DIY work and started a petition to have it stopped.

But a few people realised they had not seen the pensioner recently and called the authorities, who sent in a rescue crew.

Firefighters broke into her second-floor flat in Epinay-sous-Senart and reportedly found her lying on the ground in the bathroom, in a "very weakened" state.

The woman, who has not been named, had survived on warm tap water for almost three weeks.

She is now recovering in hospital.

"You could hear banging sounds, like a hammer, even at night," one neighbour told local media. "But we thought they were doing work at night. We said: 'They are going too far! They are preventing us from sleeping!' If we had known....'"

it's not all bad... she had a toilet and water.... she could've been locked in a closet for 20 days... now that really would have sucked