A MUM has revealed the reality of doing a council house swap to get a garden.
Danielle Woolgar, from the UK, was thrilled with her new home but admitted she ‘had to rip everything out’ when she realised the entire place stank of stale cigarettes.


The mum-of-one moved into her new home this month and didn’t say if she saw the property in person before swapping.
But she was left with her work cut out for her when she moved in.
Danielle said: “This is the current state of the house I moved into. The person that lived here before, or people, were quite heavy smokers and they smoked inside.”
[authenticated-scripts src=”%3Cscript%20class%3D%22palin-poll%22%20src%3D%22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thesun.co.uk%2Fpollingwidgets%2Fv3%2Fwidget.js%3Fquestion_id%3D109671%26game%3Dpolling%22%3E%3C%2Fscript%3E” type=”embedded” width=”100″ /]Now, the mum who swapped homes to get a garden for her son and dog had to strip the entire place to get rid of the smell.
“Well we had to rip everything out because it had quite a strong smell inside, let’s just say that,” she explained that it caused her a lot more work to make it her home.
The mum had already started by ripping off the old wallpaper and flooring throughout the property.
But despite that, she said the smell was still lingering.
“One of the main reasons that I wanted to exchange was for a garden. I think that’s what everybody wants to exchange, isn’t it really?” she added.
Danielle revealed that she found it relatively easy to swap houses despite living in a flat.
The mum said: “I have to be honest though, I had a 1-year-old new build ground floor flat which was huge and beautiful! So I had an edge up I’d say!”
[bc_video account_id=”5067014667001″ application_id=”” aspect_ratio=”16:9″ autoplay=”” caption=”I’ve transformed my horrendous council house & now I want to buy it – haters say I’m contributing to the housing crisis” embed=”in-page” experience_id=”” height=”100%” language_detection=”” max_height=”360px” max_width=”640px” min_width=”0px” mute=”” padding_top=”56%” picture_in_picture=”” player_id=”default” playlist_id=”” playsinline=”” sizing=”responsive” video_id=”6370049913112″ video_ids=”” width=”640px”]Public Reaction
The clip has since gone viral on her TikTok account @danielleeeeewoolgar with over 31k views.
People were quick to share their thoughts on the house.
One person wrote: “Why move to complain after?”
Danielle replied: “I don’t have any complaints lol this is exactly what I wanted.”
Another commented: “Don’t know why people still smoke inside I live alone and go outside can’t stand the stale smoke smell when you walk into people’s houses.”
“Sugar soap all the walls and ceilings it helped get rid of the smell in our house when we moved in,” penned a third.
Meanwhile, others were thrilled for the mum, a fourth said: “Wow it has so much potential! It’s going to look amazing, love the quirky garden!”
“It’ll be beautiful in no time, excited to see your progress,” claimed a fifth.
Someone else added: “Wow you’ve done so much already! It looks like a lovely house, can’t wait to see what you do with it!”
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