It was a wet autumn. As the house gradually slipped into the ancient sewer beneath it, cracks opened in the walls. Worst affected was the shower. Week after week, Feisty watched the tiles diverge, until one night he found himself gazing right through the ceiling at the evening star.

'This is crap,' he observed to Fon, who vehemently agreed.

'I hate the mould. It's gone out of control since the recess broke. We've got to get it fixed.'

But they'd spent all their money on furniture and celebrating.

The toadstools appeared shockingly, literally overnight. Pale and spindly, they felt horrid even through the wads of toilet paper Feisty used to pluck them. When flushed, they spun lazily to the surface and clung to the bowl.

'Jesus,' moaned Feisty. 'This wasn't in the brochure.' He lifted a broken tile to reveal rotting wood smothered in more fungus. Then a huge, febrile centipede shot out and reared angrily, startling him into the shower door with a crack. Swearing and trembling, he fetched his silicone gun and glued the tile fragments to the best of his modest ability. Though this worked for a while, the mould became worse than ever. The couple took it in turns to scrub, but the stains went too deep. Soon the shower resembled a gritty wire-frame model of itself.

When it seemed it couldn't possibly get any more hideous, the slugs arrived.

To be continued...