Will a spray a day keep the doctor away?

Property blogger, Lea Beven of Limecastle, on a week that saw her tyres let down by a prankster and ending up in hospital after freshening a house up for a viewing:

Wow, what a week!

As you know, we deal with rooms and house shares as well as normal lettings here at Limecastle and we have had a cracking week with several overseas clients booking 6 and 12 month lodgings.

Most of our overseas clients are coming over on work placements for some kind of study or training, so it can be very interesting finding them the perfect place to stay.

Shifnal Carnival took place this weekend and as our office is based there, we were left with a flat tyre from a prankster. We also had lots of enquiries for one and two bedroom flats that we have locally though, which made up for it.

But I guess you are waiting for this week's funny story really!

So here I am, off to take a 3 bedroom house on to let and when I walked in there was a very distinct smell of lavender and other old-fashioned scents.

I had a viewing booked in half-an-hour so I advised the landlady that we should open the windows and let some fresh air in.

So we did this, but it was still musty, so she produced a can of air-freshener and proceeded to empty the entire can around the house.

It did smell fresher and by the time the tenants came to view, it had actually settled down to an acceptable level. The tenants fell in love with the house and reserved their place.

15 minutes later though, on my way back into the office, my head started to itch. It was like something was crawling under my skin.

I thought nothing of it and carried on my day - I felt a bit sleepy and more drained than usual so when I got home I slipped into bed early and was out like a light.

The next morning I woke up and could not open my eyes! They had swollen shut and I had large red lumps on my elbows, knees and ankles.

I'd had an allergic reaction to the spray and ended up in casualty looking like a balloon.

The team at Princess Royal were great, they injected me with anti histamine and I had to spend two days in bed recovering.

So there you have it – your tip of the week is not to empty a whole can of air-freshener into a house and then stand in it for half an hour.

It might smell nicer, but who knows what else could happen!