A vixen sparked a 14-hour rescue mission when she decided a suburban house was the perfect first home for her family.

She and her five cubs lived under the house in Hollingdean Terrace, Brighton for a month before wildlife rescuers set out on an intricate rescue operation.

Julie Crossley, 45, was the homeowner who discovered she was playing host to some unexpected guests.

She said: "We didn't get much sleep - they were always waking us up in the night, playing and singing.

"It would have been lovely if they had just stayed under the house extension but they were right under the boards. The nest was next to the main gas and electricity pipes so there was a risk to them and to us if they started gnawing them."

Julie and her husband Paul, 48, first saw the vixen in their garden four weeks ago. She was going in and out of a hole under their extension so they blocked it up.

Later that day they heard a mewing noise from under their floorboards which they thought must be a trapped kitten.

But when they prised up the boards they found five whiskery fox-cub faces staring up at them.

The RSPCA advised them to unblock the hole immediately as the vixen would abandon her cubs if she could not get back to them within 24 hours.

During the next few weeks, they tried putting down deterrents to persuade the foxes to move out but had no luck.

In the end they contacted East Sussex Wildlife Rescue and Ambulance Service (WRAS) who prised up a section of floor and found one cub trying to hide with its head stuck in a gap where a brick was missing.

Trevor Weeks of WRAS said: "Its quite funny - they hide their faces and think that the rest of their body is hidden as well."

The other cubs proved harder to catch and they could not pick them all up until they took up the kitchen floor. The babies were then put out in a box in the garden with hot water bottles and milk until their mother came back and carried them one by one to a new home - under a garden shed two doors down.

Mr Weeks said: "Foxes always have several dens which they use quite close to each other so we knew she would have somewhere nearby that she could take them."