I want to sell you my house not catch your Covid | Nicola Adam column

But I do want to sell you my house. So I won’t force you to wear a mask but... please don’t come near me and give me a deadly virus. Selling a house in 2020 must be one of the most awkward experiences ever encountered. As if showing complete strangers around your overcrowded, working from home, centre of the universe isn’t bad enough, the emergence of a pandemic has thrown the cat right among the pigeons. Making the house you live in (which is too small for all your people and possessions – hence the move) look like a show home, when half an hour ago was in chaos, is tough at the best of times. Unlike empty developer show homes, where they put shiny, impractical, tiny mirrored furniture and the most Lilliputian of beds to fool the eye, my home is actually a home - including two offices. So, yes. the third bedroom is a study and the dining table is currently a desk area with three monitors and there is mark on the carpet where I nearly set fire to it with a hairdryer. My ‘show home’ look involves hiding the washing basket in the garage, my make-up in the wardrobe and the dishevelled wet towels in the airing cupboard. Long bedspreads hide the possessions jam packed under the bed and I’m trying to hide my inability to get round to buying spotlight bulbs in the kitchen with a lamp. I own a piece of furniture called Big Bertha, a huge mahogany family heirloom, which takes up a half a room and in a new home would be labelled an annexe. Every viewer so far has commented in the same way someone says ‘I like your hair’ when it’s been butchered beyond recognition. And then there’s Covid. While I'm unable to install a testing station outside the house (preferable) only two people are supposed to come round, which makes it painfully awkward when three arrive and you are forced to leave one outside. They are told to being masks and then ask nicely if they have to – I find I can’t insist. Yes, of course, it’s fine. Please buy my house. Just don't make me a casualty of the pandemic. Latest: The coronavirus Rule of six