Chase Post

One roofer believed it may be squirrel urine, but wouldn't go in the loft to check for the rodents because he had a 'thing' about spiders. He wasn't prepared to tackle the squirrels in a confined space without a torch, either, because he feared they'd burrow under his collar and bite him.

I tried to assure the man that the number of individuals who squirrels have stole upon under the cover of darkness, slipped into their shirts and bitten to death is yet to reach the 'one' mark, but he'd have none of it.

"Do squirrels really produce that much urine?" I asked him.

"That depends," he answered.

On what?

"On how much they've had to drink."

The latest theory is the mould's caused by condensation in the bedroom: condensation in the bedroom caused by my cold sweats caused by my fears over the mould. I've tried rubbing my entire body with a roll-on deodorant, but stick to the sheets.

It's a vicious circle, it really is.

"Surely," I reasoned to one roofer, "I started to perspire BECAUSE of the mould. It's a question of, 'what came first?'."

"Gotcha," said the 'expert', " a kind of, 'I think therefore I sweat' situation. Maybe you're just naturally a very sweaty person."

Cheeky swine.

We rub away the dry, ink-black growth, but it returns - bigger and darker than ever. A Catholic priest says if it takes the shape of the Virgin Mary, or starts bleeding, we may have a miracle on our hands. If it doesn't, the flashing on the roof probably needs doing.

Sometimes it's a very thin line between a miracle and household maintenance, it really is.

In the dim twilight, the mould patch looks like a map of Wales, without Anglesey, but left unchecked will become a continent, I'm sure of it.

I'm tempted to let the thing take over completely and pretend we've got a flock ceiling.

It's but one of many gremlins that mutate to monstrous proportions during restless nights. I've been known to cry out in anguish over the wine stain on the lounge carpet. I knocked the bottle over while drunk and, too sozzled to get a cloth, tried to suck it up. Came to bed with all shagpile round my mouth. Told the wife it was Shredded Wheat.

Too ashamed to come clean over the accident, I told our neighbours the claret patch was the result of a heavy nose bleed. "Whose nose?" asked Gary, stunned by the sheer size of the stain. "Barry Manilow's?"

Now I have sleepless nights because I think they think I'm a wife-beater.

"I'm not a wife-beater," I shouted gaily at the neighbour, trying to make light of my own paranoia.

"I'm sure you're not," he shouted back. "Anybody who bleeds that much would have problems holding a pen, let alone throwing a punch."

There are also worries about rats in the shed, a dripping tap, a mysterious rattle in the family car - which either means the gearbox needs changing or there's a stray imperial mint in the glovebox, and a horrible smell, which Julie blames on my flatulence, but I believe is down to the whole sewer system collapsing. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

At 2am last night, I woke the wife and asked: "Do you think the carpet in the hall smells?"

"For goodness sake," she exploded, "there are people in African villages who are starving to death. Now they HAVE got something to worry about."

A good point. But I'll bet they haven't got a scrap of mould on the ceilings of their huts. Lucky swines...