Woman is terrified of builders

As mum Gemma Foulds walks down the street, her heart starts pounding, her palms turn clammy and she is gripped with fear.

Her terror has been sparked by the mere sight of scaffolding ahead. It can mean only one thing — builders.

For Gemma suffers from one of the oddest phobias there is — oikodomophobia, derived from the Greek word for those tool-wielding men with droopy jeans.

Her strange dread started in her early teens with an irrational fear of toilets, sparked by a teacher warning her about the link between germs and visits to the loo.

This eventually grew into a phobia of builders and plumbers who she associated with grubby sewer pipes.