Have you checked the garden in your new house for angry gnomes, goblins and gobbledegook? I seriously urge that you do so at the earliest opportunity. Below is an excerpt from a recent publication written by one homeowner who owes her life to a big bag of garlic cloves when she was viciously attacked!

"I had only recently moved down from Liverpool, I work in retail management and was offered a new job which meant I had to relocate to the area. At the time I had no idea of the sheer horror of what fate had in stall for me. It all started a couple of weeks after I had moved in, the move itself was fairly hassle-free and I had about two weeks to get myself sorted out before starting my new job.

The house was quite tired looking, an old lady had lived there for many years and she hadn't done much with the place in a long time. The first week I spent doing some much needed painting and decorating in the lounge, and got the carpet cleaners in to give the place a good going over.

The second week I moved on to the garden, there was lots of ornamental stuff kicking around, very busy looking and not really to my taste at all! In the centre of the garden stood an array of ornamental tinkling toadstools, and along the right side of the lawn an extensive rockery with these sinister looking gnomes scattered at various heights. I know it sounds ridiculous but I actually felt quite intimidated by their peering eyes, but little did I know what was to come next.

I had entered the garden through the rear door, and was leaning against the door frame with a shovel in my hand trying to decide what to tackle first. I'll just start with the easiest stuff to begin with; those dreaded tinkling toadstools, they had been chattering away all night, quite annoying. Yes, they're first to go I thought, so I stood the shovel up against the wall, then quickly preceded to tare them out of the ground. I threw them one by one towards the end of the garden and heard them land on the grass in the distance.

After the cursed tinkling toadstools had been removed I leant over to grab my shovel to give the disturbed earth a dig-over, but it wasn't there. I stood up and turned to look more closely but it had gone, then at this exact moment I felt a sudden streaking pain shoot down the right side of my face. I fell to the floor from the shock of the sudden impact, winded and gasping for breath. What the hell just happened? Had a tile fallen from the roof and hit me?

It was only when I turned my head that I saw the most unbelievable sight, through confused and blurry vision I could see a group of gnomes huddled together clutching the missing shovel. As my vision recovered I could see expressions of rage and anger in their shiny weathered faces. I could see they were trying to raise the shovel to attempt a second blow; fortunately I was coherent enough by this stage to start scrambling towards the back door.

Severely concussed I fell into the doorway, it was as though I was crawling through thick treacle, every movement taking far longer than it should. I could hear the gnomes had raised the shovel, in preparation for their second swing, by the loud clang of the tool hitting the washing line pole behind them. I looked around in desperation; I had to stop them as perhaps this time my life would depend on it.

I reached out to grasp the nearest thing I could find, anything I could throw at them, and to my astonishment and almost without realising it I had grabbed a heavy bag of garlic cloves. I threw it in their general direction with all my might, SMASH; the bag of garlic cloves landed perfectly on target and sent the gnomes hurtling backwards like pins on a bowling ally. At least four of them were launched into a wall dividing the patio from the lawn, and had broken into several pieces.

I crawled further into the safety of the doorway, kicking the door shut and just laid there on the kitchen floor for a few moments considering the fantastic event that had just occurred. I could hear drops of blood falling to the floor from a gash on my face, the bleeding offered reassurance that what had just happened was real, it wasn't just a hallucination."

So from this cautionary tail be warned, the gnomes will get angry if you tamper with their garden. Make sure they are removed when the present occupier leaves the property, and if they're still present when you arrive make it your first effort to remove the gnomes. They will kill you when your back is turned and you least expect it!