1. Getting nailed

One 'go-getting individual' called Nigel from Leicester decided to nail the floorboards down in his bathroom with a DIY staple gun. Seems fair enough, you might say.

The problem arose when the clumsy pillock lost his balance and fell over. As he told columnist Carol Smillie: 'I heard the gun go off. I felt a pain in my chest, so I went to take off my jumper, but I couldn't because it was nailed to my chest.' Oh dear, oh dear.

Anyhow, it was later revealed at hospital that the nail was an inch inside his heart, and a single millimetre away from the main artery. In the most shocking, and most stupid, aspect of the story, the man actually considered removing the nail with pliers before dialling 999. Certain death would have followed. Is this for real? Sadly, very sadly, yes.

2. Self-butchering

This story is a very bad advert for mixing DIY and alcohol.

One fellow called Paul from Yorkshire told the BBC how he went boozing at lunch and thought it would be a good idea to partake in a spot of DIY in the afternoon. There was a small piece of wallpaper in the corner of the ceiling that was 'annoying' him and which Paul wanted to remove.

So what did he do? Why, he got a butcher's boning knife and stood on a wobbly chair, of course. Obviously he fell off, and plunged the knife - to the hilt - into his chest, about an inch beside his heart. Unbelievable.

Amazingly, he ends the comment with the ridiculously jolly 'Never again...!'. Well, BuildersBox should think so too.

3. Gas the plants

Now for one that isn't quite so violent, unless abuse of plants counts.

What about those brother-in-laws eh? One called Colin from Gwent decided to plumb in an outside tap to make watering the garden easier for his sister-in-law Andrea.

As his sister-in law tells it, he used a 'DIY outside tap kit' which he fixed to an existing water pipe, puncturing the pipe and allowing the water to flow through the tap when in use.

The problem was that he didn't connect it to the water pipe and instead of watering the plants, he gassed them. That don't work.

4. Smoke in the sash

Blokes always get a bit excited when they get to play with fire, as was the case with David from Sutton when he decided to use a blowtorch for a spot of paint removal.

He was tackling a sash window in the bathroom. As he did the work, David was a bit worried about the temperature of the torch he was using to remove the paint, but, after a hard day of work and the job complete, there was no smoke, and no fire.

Unfortunately, as David descended the stairs at the end of the day for a hard-earned beer, he was unaware that a spark of fire had caused the window frame to catch alight. Quickly, the whole window frame was alight, billowing smoke into the whole of the house. By the time that it was discovered, it seemed the whole house was doomed. Luckily, the fire was in the bathroom, so a speedy release of the shower meant that eventually the fire was doused out.

A torch on timber? David, what were you thinking of?

5. Handy man

Finally, the squeamish might want to skip this tale about Paul Stothers from Norfolk.

He was using a motorised saw while cutting a piece of skirting board. Again, not exactly rocket science, and certainly not specifically dangerous.

But here's where it all goes wrong. He lifted the safety guard (why, oh why?) so that he could see the pencil markings, and then brought the machine down, cutting off his hand. Ow. Ow. Ow.

He needed a nine hour operation to reattach his hand, and this was then followed by four other operations.

That may have been the end of his DIY career.

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