Tintin Rao has turned her house into a museum of her life - and it is quite a story.

Every window of her home in Queensbury Mews, Brighton, is covered with photographs and letters. The walls are daubed with messages or decked with flowers and pictures.

To top it off, a Union Flag flies from the roof.

The 43-year-old lives in the converted coach house with her dogs, Scooby Doo and Grumpy Baldrick, a whistling parrot called Cheeky Charly and friend and lodger Mark. She has a penchant for novelty dog slippers.

One of Brighton's more eccentric characters, her life sounds like it could come from a novel.

Tintin was born Sanjay Rao in Kenya, the son of an Indian railway station master and a French mother.

Within months of her birth they moved to India and then, when she was two, on to south London.

Fifteen years ago her mother told her her real father was an Indian RAF pilot.

She has been a guide in Madame Tussaud's, worked as an interior designer and been a pole dancer in New Orleans. Many of the letters stuck in the windows are references from her old employers.

For nine years she was married to a Finnish woman but they split up amicably 16 years ago.

When Tintin moved to Brighton four years ago she felt she was being victimised for her unusual appearance.

She said: "People would shout at me in the street and I had bottles thrown at me when I walked my dog.

"I was attacked once when I was sitting down by the seafront.

"People don't know how to handle me. I'm not what they think of as normal. But I don't care.

"I don't see myself as either sex. I'm a boy/girl. I don't call myself a transsexual. It's not about sexuality or gender, it's about the way you feel. This is how I am."

After two years she decided enough was enough and chose to air her life and views on her walls.

The signs, which she changes from time to time, include an homage to Sussex Police - whom she adores - and a dedication to her dog Monty Magic, who she believes was poisoned by drug dealers.

She said: "The police know me well. People have complained to them about me because they don't understand me but the officers realise I don't want to harm anyone."

Every year Tintin makes coffee for officers stationed on the street during the party conference season. However, she rarely goes beyond her front door.

She has installed five CCTV cameras, which relay a constant stream of images to a television in her front room, and a microphone outside.

She said: "I've done it because there is a lot of drug dealing in the street as it is dark and deserted at night.

"Now that they know there are CCTV cameras on them all the time they can't do it openly. They've told me I've cost them a lot of money. I don't care.

"They should not be dealing in front of people's homes, where children can see them.

"I've seen people injecting drugs in cars in the morning."

She does not have any plans for the future, other than trying to put off dealing on her street.