East Preston girl’s dolls house comes with unwelcome guest inside

Lexie’s father Kelvin was shocked when he opened up the tot’s wooden dolls house – a present which should have been the icing on the cake – only to find it was being wrecked by a wood-eating death watch beetle larva.

Her mum Jo bought the present from the Early Learning Centre’s website in April, months prior to her daughter’s birthday celebrations, and was stunned when Kelvin discovered the house’s unwelcome resident.

She said: “The experience ruined Lexie’s birthday. She was just so upset. All she wanted to do was to play with her doll’s house.”

Mother of three Jo, 34, had stored the gift, in its original packaging, at the family’s home in Worthing Road, East Preston.

A few days before the birthday, Jo and Kelvin, 33, unwrapped the model to try to prepare it for Lexie’s party, but became concerned when they saw a small hole in the base of the house.

“At first it looked like a tiny drill hole. We thought that maybe one of the screws had come loose,” said Jo. “But we couldn’t see anything, so Kelvin covered up the holes with tape and thought nothing of it.

“It was only a couple of days later, when I heard an unusual, high pitched clicking sound coming from the house, that I became concerned.”

Kelvin investigated the suspicious noise and discovered the worm inside.

Jo said: “The worm had obviously become agitated when we taped up the hole. When we opened the bottom stair of the house, it was totally hollow. Just an empty shell of wood.

“That’s when we saw the worm. We could see it doing this horrible sucking motion. We just couldn’t believe our eyes.”

The couple went to the Early Learning Centre (ELC) store, in Worthing, to complain. However, they were disappointed by the service they have received.

“The house was ordered from their website. We’re just concerned that this could happen to someone else. We haven’t received an apology from them yet. It’s terrible.”

A spokeswoman from the ELC said: “We would like to apologise to Mrs Atter, both for the problem with the product and for the disappointing way her concerns were handled. Early Learning Centre takes issues such as this very seriously and we are currently investigating the incident with our supplier.”