I am trying to get over my fear of sleeping in beds that are not my own. The phobia can really restrict my life.

Because I can only fall asleep in my own bed, I can't sleep at friends' homes. I find it traumatic to book hotel rooms and need to check out the bed linen as soon as I arrive. It is completely irrational, but I fear bedbugs, dirty sheets, harsh, bobbly duvet covers and millions of germs breeding on my body as I sleep.

For some reason, sleeping on a friend's sofa is far more preferable to sleeping in a guest room bed. It's ironic, because the bug count is likely to be far greater on a sofa, where people spend so much time sitting and eating.

But a bed that's not my own feels a bit too intimate for me, the possibility of someone else's skin and bits of hair and germs lurking in the fabric of a pillowcase or on a bedsheet freaks me out.

It can really be a pain socially and my some of my friends are less than sympathetic. They don't seem to realise that, after about a decade of insomnia, I've only just learned to sleep in my own bed. It's going to take at least another ten years sleeping in someone else's.

I have a friend who mentions her guest room every time I visit. I've explained I don't want to sleep over time and time again, but she thinks she can wear me down. She offers the room every time, and I have to go through the same old awkward feelings as I explain that I can't fall asleep in other people's houses.

I was sent to Folkstone last week for my work and was forced to book into a hotel. My heart froze when I opened the door and the smell of damp carpet hit me. I went straight over to the bed and, just as I expected, the duvet cover was harsh and bobbly all over. I felt doomed. This "Princess and the Pea" syndrome means I have to entomb myself in my own clothes so that I don't touch the sheets. Often this means I shiver through the night as I use my coat as a duvet.

Anyway, I had some panicky thoughts about sleeping on the chair until I realised it might be just as bug-infested and realised I was doomed.

I took myself out to calm down. It was only one night after all. I could catch up on my sleep when I got back between my lovely clean M&S sheets on my Japanese Tatami mattress.

I wound up in a friendly bar and, talking to the barmaid, I confided my misgivings to her about my dirty hotel room.

"Well, you could come and sleep here instead," she said. It turned out the bar was attached to a hotel that had recently been refurbished and everything was new. She showed me the room and the bed looked pretty bearable. But how was I going to get out of the room I had booked 20 minutes earlier. "I'm sure you'll find a way," she said with a wink.

After a few drinks, I went back and broke the bad news to the manager about how I had been called back to London. Then I ran to my new hotel, which was literally three doors down.

I can't say I had a happy night's sleep but, after tucking my trousers into my pyjamas and covering myself with a coat before placing the duvet on top, I felt I was well protected. And they had just refurbished, after all.