One Irish-Spanish family swapped their six-bedroom villa just outside Seville for a dilapidated four-bedroom detached home in south Dublin. The experience has discouraged them from considering an exchange with strangers again.

"Following a brief scan of the Internet for a suitable house swap to no avail, we put an advertisement in The Irish Times. We got a few replies and decided on a house because the owner sounded very nice on the phone and the dates for swapping suited us both.

"We planned to come to Dublin for six weeks with our children, who were booked into a summer camp.

"We left our home in Spain spick-and-span, got the car serviced before our departure, left food in the fridge and organised for someone to come to look after the garden and the swimming-pool while we were away. We also had friends on standby in case our house swapper encountered any difficulties.

"We met our house swapper in Dublin just before she left for Spain. In fact, she left us with a machine full of dirty laundry and a car to be serviced.

"From the moment we arrived, we were disappointed. Here we were in one of the most exclusive suburbs of Dublin but the house was a complete disaster.

"The curtains were in shreds. There weren't enough chairs for us to sit on and the ones which were there had their springs coming out of them. There wasn't enough crockery, either.

"We felt we could never have friends around to see us while we were there.

"The garden was like an Amazonian forest and the garage was like a mini tip. In fact, one of our children cut himself badly on a broken aquarium and we had to bring him to the hospital to get stitches.

"We decided we'd make do and only use the house as a crash pad, spending all our time away from it during the day.

"But our house swapper was on the phone to us every second day asking us how this and that worked in our house. Suddenly, we didn't hear from her at all but thought nothing of it, deciding to leave well enough alone.

"She did, however, call a few days before her departure to let us know that there was something wrong with our car.

"On our return, we found our house empty. She and her children had left a day earlier than planned. We soon realised why. The gear box in our car was damaged. Unopened toys belonging to our children lay broken on the floor of the toyroom. And, the air-conditioning had been left on full for two days.

"Outside, our garden and pool were in disarray and we later discovered that our house swapper had fired our gardener - who, incidentally, has never returned to our house - and used the very expensive public water mains to water the garden instead of the well on the site.

"Once we got the car fixed, we sent her the bill. We also sent her the water bill but we are still awaiting payment for both.

"We were very angry for quite some time afterwards and we would never consider a house swap with a stranger again, although we do realise that there aren't many people like her."