OUR house is possessed.

I don't mean the bailiffs have descended, not yet.

What I mean is that the building has a spirit, a personality, and it isn't very nice.

During 2004 our so-called home-sweet-home shunned our well-meaning attentions, ignoring the fact that we forked out a fortune on a new fence for one side of the garden.

It callously refused to thank us for the nice paint job it got on its windows and door frames, or the new white goods we lavished on its elegant interior.

Instead, it quietly festered over imagined slights, nursing a grievance from the time we didn't get the boiler serviced, or failed to check up on a dodgy-looking roof tile.

It's so paranoid, it probably thinks we didn't clear out the guttering last spring, and it combines its thin skin with a mean streak that knows revenge is a dish best served cold.

Month after month it has lain in wait like a poker champion. It looked like butter wouldn't melt in its mouth while all the time it was coldly choosing the perfect moment to play its killer hand.

Now, with a flash of genius, it has launched its retaliation as we struggle to recover from yet another over-indulgent Christmas.

Knowing its owners have reached the point where neither of us dare look at our bank statements, the house has presented us with a shower that has sprung a leaky 'O' ring.

And just to make things interesting, we've been given a matching ceiling stain for the sitting room, immediately beneath the bathroom.

This is not just any old stain, by the way. It's a stain that grows bigger every time we try - and fail - to stop the dripping from the shower head.

Just yesterday, the evil spirit decided to up the ante a bit more by deciding we didn't need regular, reliable hot water.

We are hoping this is a temporary act of spite that can be appeased by carefully resetting the controls on the heating and water system, but only time will tell if we can ever take a hot bath again.

You might think these things come in threes, but not as far as our house is concerned. We got the longest, most shabby bit of garden fencing fixed last summer after a lot of fun and games as we tried to find a reliable joiner to do the job.

We thought about doing the rest of the garden, but we both had to have a lie-down when we saw the estimate, so we thought we'd do it later.

Hmmm. What we didn't mean to say was that we'd do it in January when we were already skint from Christmas, but given that the fence has been reduced to random sticks by this week's gales, it looks like the credit card is due to take another hammering.

I'd like to be able to say it was just the house that had this evil streak, but now I'm not so sure.

My Other Half took his car in for a new tyre (£75) and came out having paid £300 for a full set because of bald patches in a place such things shouldn't be happening.

Ever since he has been seized by a nagging doubt over what exactly is causing the wear and tear, and just how dangerous it is - until yesterday, that is, when the car developed a serious attitude problem. Now, he just worries about whether it will start or not.

Surely nothing else can happen - not with my birthday coming up. Does anyone know a good, cheap exorcist...?

Updated: 09:16 Wednesday, January 12, 2005