Many years ago in another lifetime, we bought a deceased estate home in a little town called Uralla, in NSW. It was a tiny two bedroom down a narrow laneway and belonged to a 93 year old, quite wealthy, spinster hoarder. She was well known and even just a couple of years before her death you would see her about the little town immaculately dressed and even with make-up.

Impossible to give even a short description here, but it no longer, inside, resembled a home. And to really make things interesting, it hadn't been cleaned for decades, not years. Ha! And there's more. For almost 63 years she shared the home with about 40 odd companion chooks.

The smell made us retch every time we got near the place and it was literally moving with lice and every imanigable vermin on the planet. I won't talk about the toilet and bathroom. Whilst rennovatung the place our men looked like Martians in spacesuits and even had a makeshift cold shower erected in the back yard.

As disgusting, and sad too, as it was, there was a bonus - we found a lot of money, all ten pound notes, and the value only just fell short of what we paid for the home. But, I still reckon we worked for it.

its definitely an illness, and a nasty one.

Melina.