PAUL Hooper is hoping that Channel 5's most popular programme, House Doctor, will roll out the barrel for him . . . by selling his home so he can buy a pub.

Mr Hooper's bungalow, at The Orchard, Great Burdon, near Darlington, was picked out in July for the famous no-nonsense sales treatment from US property expert Ann Maurice.

Next Wednesday, millions of viewers will see the celebrity's verdict on the three-bedroomed detached property, which had been on the market for six months without any sign of a sale.

Divorced Mr Hooper built the bungalow in 1995 with the help of a building firm, and admits he was offended by Maurice's comments that his home "did not look lived in".

The £190,000 property was judged by Maurice to be overshadowed in terms of neatness by neighbouring homes, and dismissed by her as: "Dead plants, abandoned furniture . . . it looks like you don't even care."

Mr Hooper's fluorescent lime bedroom and wallpapered master bedroom were dubbed awful.

But other rooms did meet with approval from the woman who claims to be the expert when it comes to shifting problem properties.

He said: "They pull a few stunts by making your home look worse than it really is at the start, but she altered the bedrooms completely and I've got to agree it looked better. She used natural colours and everything was not so flowery."

Mr Hooper, a former pub manager, decided to put his house on the market so that he could move back into the pub trade.

But he revealed last night that even though his home had had the healing hands of the house doctor at work, the property was still on the market.

He said: "Now I'm afraid that my mates are really going to pull my leg about what Ann says about my home. She and I didn't see eye-to-eye about everything, but she is quite a forceful character and gets her own way.

"She has nicknames for her clients. One was the Dog Man, because she doesn't like dogs in the house. I was the Pub Man."

Mr Hooper revealed that he added one extra feature to his tidied-up back garden, in tribute to the woman who invented the word "de-clutter".

It was a statue of Ann.

"I added a big nose and eyes. I discovered later that she wasn't very happy about it."

* The story of Pub Man and the House Doctor will be presented by Alistair Appleton on Channel 5, at 8pm.