UNEMPLOYED forklift truck driver Steve Williams has launched a campaign to save his colourful house from being repossessed.

Steve has turned his home into a work of art, covering its walls with eye-catching murals and collages. But after losing his job, the 25-year-old could soon see it taken from him.

For more than five years he has been living inside an art gallery of his own creation. A hot rod car surrounded by tribal designs is the focus of the living room, while a host of cartoon and comic book characters fill the walls of the kitchen.

In the bathroom a mermaid watches over the bath, and an eagle guards the front door.

But Steve could lose both his home and his artworks, if his financial situation does not improve.

Steve, a qualified forklift truck driver, has not been able to find any work in three months, and after falling behind with his mortgage his home could be repossessed by his lender on March 30. His biggest fear is that the new owners of the property will simply paint over the artwork that has taken him years to develop.

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Video: Take a tour inside the painted house

Steve's friends have rallied around Steve and launched an internet campaign to save the "Painted House".

The terrace house, in Aubrey Street, Goldenhill, used to be Steve's parents' home, but when they moved out in 2003, he took over the mortgage.

Steve said: "I started off just doing a couple of smaller paintings in the kitchen, and it just expanded from there.

"I've been painting the house on and off over the last few years now, sometimes changing the designs. My favourite one is probably the mural in the front room.

"I'm gutted that I could be losing the house after spending so much time on it."

Steve studied art at Newcastle College from 2000 to 2003, and still has ambitions to become a professional artist.

But apart from painting a mural for the New Inn in Burslem, offers of commercial work have been few and far between.

Since leaving college he has been working as a forklift truck driver, but now even that work is drying up.

He is now pinning his hopes on getting a job with Focus in Tunstall, where he had an interview last week.

If he can prove he will be able to meet the £360 a month mortgage payments, he may be able to stave off the threat of repossession.

Steve added: "I've been doing warehouse work in the past, but I definitely want to be an artist. It is my main ambition in life. But apart from doing that pub mural I haven't done any professional work.

"At the moment all my hope is resting on this interview. Basically if I don't get this job, then that will be it."

Steve's desperate situation has prompted his friends to start an internet campaign to save the house.

One of these is Laura Fletcher, who was at Newcastle College with Steve.

She is currently studying media production at Staffordshire University, and is making a film about the Painted House as her graduation project.

Laura, aged 25, of Shelton, said: "At first we just wanted to help Steve out, by buying furniture off him and things like that. But then we realised that we could use the art in the house to save it."

Laura and her friends have set up a number of websites on Blogspot, Facebook and Twitter, featuring pictures of Steve's murals and offering the house as a potential venue for music videos and model shoots.

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