Woman overrun by social media influencers posing outside her pink house

When Eleri Morgan decided to bring a little bit of colour to her street during lockdown by painting her home pink she thought the neighbours might like the streak of sunshine added to the road - but she had no idea so many strangers would also be enthralled.The Cardiff house was formerly a fairly standard pebbledash terrace when Eleri, originally from Aberystwyth, picked up the keys and moved in during 2018 with a long list of plans to update the home on a budget.The coronavirus pandemic gave 32-year-old Eleri the time and the impetus she needed to get the paint brush out and revive the facade of the home she shares with her sister.Eleri said: "After years of renting, where everything has to be white walls and brown carpets, it felt like a bit of freedom being able to live in a colourful house."And I just really like pink, I don't buy into pink being feminine at all, it's a really strong colour with purpose, it's bright and colourful."I'll never change from the pink and I'm keen for the rest of the street to follow suit."And if the street does get colourful then pink is the way you want to go - I'm glad we got in there first with the pink."We're doing up the whole house, we bought it off a 104-year-old woman who just decided it was time to move on and she hadn't decorated it since she moved in during the 1960s so it was all carpeted bathrooms and avocado suites, so we're doing the whole thing up which is really fun."

Everything the sisters have bought has been secondhand and up-cycled as they continue to totally refurbish the inside, but the outside of the property was a priority and pink was the only colour in the running.The neighbours loved it, her friends loved it, Eleri loved it.But after the house became pretty in pink, occasionally Eleri would notice someone hovering outside her window but didn't think much of it, although it was enough for her to consider buying some window privacy film.Eleri says: "During lockdown lots of people were going on walks and the interest has been trickling in since then, but obviously they wouldn't know to tag me, so I get messages from friends saying, 'why is there a picture of your house on social media?'"It wasn't until the lockdown restrictions started to significantly lift from last month onwards that Eleri began to notice small groups of people collecting at her front door and taking pictures of her pretty pink house more regularly.Some cheeky selfie-snappers even pretended to be about to go inside, with key in hand as though it was their home.Eleri realised her house was becoming a victim of Instragram influencers, always on the hunt for something distinctive to snap and put on their Instagram stories.And a strong pink appears to be the perfectly pretty background for an influencer to stand out from the crowd.

While many people might feel a mix of emotions, Eleri is a professional comedian and joke writer so she certainly sees the funny side of her home being regularly hijacked for social media fodder.And the amusing subject is surely going to be discussed as part of her act when she appears at Chapter's Drones Comedy Club in early September.Eleri says: "I didn't think people would be quite as interested as this in the house, but it now happens probably two or three times a week."People do a little photo outside my house and it's completely harmless, I don't mind it at all and I feel there must be other places who get it far more than me."Usually it's really nice women having a great time with their friends taking pictures of them leaning against the wall."I remember the first time it happened I cackled because I saw them and they saw that and looked so embarrassed. But then I felt awful, so now I sit in my car and wait until they have finished."I try not to walk towards my house until I know they haven't noticed me because if it was the other way around I think I'd die of embarrassment.And I don't want to embarrass them, so I just wait until they've finished off and they are around the corner and then I scurry in - and then I close the curtains."I don't really know what to do, I don't want to interrupt them, I'm like an awkward Welsh person having to say 'I'm so sorry to have to go into my own house!" Eleri says when the latest 'photoshoot' occurred at her front door and she told a friend, her advice was quite dramatic: "She was telling me I should yell at them because they were on my property."But she lives in Amsterdam where the tulip fields are and there the influencers actually go in and rip tulips up or lie down amongst them to get a better shot."With me it's so harmless, it's mainly young girls taking photos and who really like my pink house, so it's flattering I guess."But if Eleri thinks it's amusing at the moment, it might become more intrusive as more influencers arrive at her front door, as her pink house is about to become a TV star as the home of a gay couple in S4C's new sitcom Jam.She says the television cast and crew were at the property for the day and used mainly the outside and the living room, plus she got paid for the job and that then paid for the pink paint and continuing the home's internal make-over.

Eleri hopes her neighbours seeing all the positivity around her colourful house, as well as on featuring on television in Jam, will encourage them to get painting too.She says: "I am determined for it to look like Elm Street - it's one pink and a blue and a yellow at the moment although some more are starting.I really want to put leaflets in my neighbours' doors that says 'paint your houses!' Recently Eleri tweeted her amusement of her home's new found social media followers and some people could definitely relate to her situation.Of course, Eleri's home is the only colourful house in Wales or even Cardiff, and one resident of maybe the capital's most famous colourful road, Elm Street, relayed his own experience.

The owner of the vibrant Caribbean house on Elm Street tweeted that his house was the subject of an estate agent's marketing campaign, as it is so distinctive.Not a problem, owners Si and Jen told WalesOnline when we visited the residents of Elm Street in 2019, but the company didn't even ask him and his partner for permission.Maybe Eleri needs to read the article about what it's like to live on Elm Street before she encourages her neighbours to follow suit and give the street on the other side of Cardiff a colourful run for its money.But it might be too late already, as the pink house is already flanked by a blue and a yellow house next door and there's a refreshing mint shade further down the street.