House Rules’ Daniella trashes the “disgusting” conditions the show forced her to live under

HOUSE Rules’ Daniella Winter didn’t sleep for six nights during production, terrified she would be attacked by bugs, snakes and a grunting wild boar.

FOR Gold Coast glamour girl Daniella Winter, the first week on House Rules was quite literally a real bug bear.

The remote location for the first renovation — at the foothills of the Grampians in Victorian — meant contestants had to sleep in tents beside the house, swarming with creepy crawlies.

“When I first saw the tent I thought that’s going to be OK and I opened the door and looked at the beds. But then as the afternoon and the night progressed and I saw there was no kitchen, no bathroom ... at one point we left our tent open with the light on and the whole roof was covered in insects,” she told News Corp.

House Rules’ Aaron and Daniella set to work on Fiona’s demolished “shack” Picture: Channel 7

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“It was every creature under the sun, tiny little bugs, and then when you turned the light off you felt them dropping on you, on your skin. I was laying in bed and we had to pull the sheets up over us and wait a good 15-20 minutes until they all dropped from the ceiling. We were crawling in bugs, it was disgusting. There were flying ants with wings, lots of mosquitos — some of the teams got covered in mosquito bites,” she said.

“So not only did you have to do a build and feel disgusting, you had to live, eat, breathe it.

There were points when everyone was just swallowing flies ‘cos there were so many flies out there on that build. When you’re painting, you were painting over insects.”

Gold Coast glamour couple Aaron and Daniella Winter. Picture: Channel 7

While the pest plague was bad enough, it was the least of Winter’s concerns.

“I was concerned about snakes because we were surrounded by bush. You’d step in the grass and it would go past your knee and there was one night I could hear grunting ...I couldn’t tell whether that was another contestant or a wild boar. For the sake of my mind I told myself it was a contestant.”

Not surprisingly, she endured six sleepless nights.

“I didn’t sleep at all,” said Winter, confirming she would turn up to the building site “mentally exhausted” after being kept away the night before. Her carpenter husband, however, didn’t seem to have any problem.

“Aaron would be there snoring [and] there would be so many times I’d just be knocking him going, ‘I can’t sleep. I can’t go anywhere. I can’t make a cup of tea, I can’t do anything. It was pretty tough,” she said.

Horrified Daniella managed to crack a smile despite to sleepless nights. Picture: Channel 7

Filmed in October last year, temperatures also dropped at night, adding to her discomfort.

“There was one point I went to bed with five layers on top, two track pants, and three pairs of socks because I was that cold. Plus, we had to stay up and study, but you were battling with reception and no lights so you were under pressure — and boy did it test our marriage.”

Winter admits she considered running away to a hotel just to get some rest.

Winter said her camping experience was one of the toughest things she’s ever done, second only to childbirth: “I’ve had two children and this is by far the second toughest thing I’ve done.”

House Rules airs Sunday, 7pm, and Monday to Thursday, 7.30pm.

Originally published as House Rules’ Daniella trashes the “disgusting” conditions the show forced her to live under