A family suffered thousands of pounds worth of damage to their home in a terrifying fire allegedly caused by - a vacuum cleaner.

Denise Graovac's 24-year-old daughter Sophie, who has autism, was home alone earlier this month (November 18) when she heard an "explosion"."

She rushed to the garage at the home in Thames Ditton, Surrey to see what was happening - and found there were "flames and smoke everywhere"."

Sophie immediately dialled 999 and the local fire brigade arrived - but not before the fire wreaked catastrophic damage.

Denise, who is retired, claims firefighters informed her that the re-chargeable lithium battery in her handheld vacuum had likely exploded.

The mum-of-three, 66, said: "It's just so incredibly scary. People need to know they have ticking time bombs in their homes. "

"I've had this vacuum for years and my daughter had used it earlier that day. There were no signs anything was wrong with it. "

"But now, our garage is completely destroyed. In it, our washing machine, our tumble dryer - my husband's computer equipment. "

"We've been without heating and water for the past week week - just when it's gotten really cold. And the soot damage has gone all through the house. "

"The garage is an internal one so the fire could have spread into where we live. "

"If we had been asleep? We could have lost our lives. We could have lost the whole home. "

"So it could have been worse. Thankfully, we are all okay and the fire was contained." "

Denise and her family have lived in their home for 30 years - so she says she would have been "devastated" to lose it. "

Now, she's tasked with finding an emergency plumber and electrician to get things up and running again - and speaking to insurance about all the damage that has been caused.

"I have no idea how long it will take to fix everything," Denise said. "

"But there's thousands of pounds worth of damage. We just had a new garage door. There's all the computer stuff..."

"It's not just the fire that causes damage. It's the smoke and the soot and the water damage from putting out the fire."

"You're hearing about these batteries exploding all the time nowadays. It's worrying. People need to know they can't trust these things." "

Surrey Fire and Rescue Service was approached for comment.