But the 53-year-old has vowed never to leave her dream house even though she's suffered three fires, a ceiling caving in and floods.

Jenny's Hartlepool home was saved from burning down when her nephew soaked her size 18-20 smalls in water and threw them over a frying pan that was on fire.

Now Jenny has revealed that, in the 18 years she has lived at the address, the fire is the latest in a long line of misfortunes.

But she says: "We've had the house up for sale a couple of times and I've looked all over Hartlepool but there is no house on offer like this one."

Around 12 years ago, an electrical fire broke out in her gas cupboard, which is in the kitchen.

"The fire brigade had to be called to put out the fire underneath the floorboards," said Jenny, a 53-year-old baker.

About four years ago, when son John was a 14-year-old Manor College of Technology pupil, he set fire to Jenny's kitchen worktops during a science experiment which involved making home-made fireworks.

And the fire brigade were called again to the house when the family's pet cat, Perry, was trapped in a kitchen cupboard.

Jenny said when her children, John, 18, Sarah, 23, Joanne, 24, and Donna, 27, were younger, she regularly woke them up in the middle of the night to give them fire drills.

She said they would crawl along the floor and escape through a bedroom window, out onto the roof of her extended bathroom.

She added: "We've been very lucky. After our fire, I was watching the news and there was a hospital burning down in London."

The drama had unfolded at 2pm on Sunday when John tried to fry some bread but left the pan unattended when he answered the door to his cousin Darren Lines, a 23-year-old apprentice mechanic.

When the pair returned to the kitchen, the frying pan was well alight and an extractor fan fell onto the pan.

John, who is looking for work, initially made the blaze worse by throwing water on the fire. But quick-thinking Darren grabbed Jenny's cotton underwear, which were in the washing, doused them under the tap, and put the fire out.

But it's not all been bad news for the family. Back in 2004, John saved his diabetic mother from slipping into a coma.