I thought I was being pranked when random items I didn’t want kept showing up at my house – the truth was FAR more baffling than I ever could have imagined

A This Morning guest has revealed the mind-boggling truth behind the random parcels turning up at her home – containing bizarre online-shopping items.

Nicola Edwards joined Ben Shephard and Cat Deeley on Monday morning to discuss the strange happenings that began occurring as she went through the menopause. 

The guest explained she had begun noticing parcels from online shopping platforms turning up outside her home despite not remembering ordering anything. 

While she shrugged it off as a ‘prank’ from a family member at first, Nicola, 56, soon became concerned that she was being ‘scammed’ online. 

But the baffling truth soon came tumbling out, when her husband explained he had caught her on her phone in the middle of the night – while still fast asleep. 

It was soon revealed that Nicola had been purchasing items online while she had been sleeping – and had spent over £1,000 on random items. 

Among the items that turned up at her front door were a series of wigs for her dog, hundreds of miniature figurines of people, and a guinea pig guide book, despite not owning a guinea pig. 

Nicola had also bought herself a Nicola Sturgeon mug and a signed Stormzy album, tyres for a wheelbarrows he doesn’t have, as well as clothing and shoes in the wrong size, and even children’s hats. 

She explained: ‘It was about three years ago and it started around perimenopause symptoms, some anxiety and depression, weight gain and all the other usual horrible stuff that comes along.

‘Then I was getting all these parcels through the post, I didn’t know where they were coming from and I didn’t know what was going on.

‘[They were] totally random, and first of all I thought it could be a prank, that it was my sister pranking me – but then when I had a look and saw what time of the morning they were coming, 2am or 3am, that sounds like a scam. 

‘I just thought it was just some sort of a scam I was sending all this stuff. 

‘One day my husband said to me, “You were on your phone last night and I said to you to put your phone down and you completely ignored me”. 

‘He told me the time, and I checked on my phone, and it was then I had made a stupid purchase – and I put two and two together and realised what was happening. 

‘I can’t even navigate these apps when I’m awake, and it was complicated things, one day I got 50 meringue bars – I’d set up a monthly subscription. It was just really random.’

Nicola revealed she wasn’t able to keep her phone away from her at night as ‘both her parents are not in the best of health’, and she often gets calls from her daughter, who has autism. 

Instead, she’s coached herself to put things in a shopping basket without checking out, adding: ‘I managed to do that, and it was great because the first thing I saw in my basket was an £800 coffee machine I didn’t check out. 

‘In the basket at the minute I’ve got a miniature potters wheel, a nun costume for a dog, a pop-up Igloo tent and an aviator hat for a child, complete with goggles.’

Resident This Morning health expert Dr Sophie Bostock weighed in on what was happening to Nicola, explaining:  ‘It is an unusual sleep disorder, but this sleep shopping is part of a family of sleep disorders called parasomnias. 

‘They happen because of faulty transitions between the stages of sleep between being asleep and wakefulness.

‘In Nicola’s case, most of her brain is in deep stage three non REM sleep, so she is not consciously, rationally aware in what she’s doing – but part of her brain is heading towards wakefulness. 

‘Your eyes can be open, and you can absolutely do routine behaviours.

‘Anything that deprives someone of sleep can lead to these faulty transitions, so any form of stress can trigger these people who are genetically vulnerable to it, very often there will be a family history.

‘In perimenopause we’ve got these fluctuating levels of hormones, and it’s a form of stress for the body, and that can be enough to push someone to a parasomnia.’ 

It comes after This Morning viewers hit out at ITV for ‘scraping the bottom of the barrel’ as a former marine bragged about trading the military for selling his socks on OnlyFans. 

ITV hosts Ben Shephard and Cat Deeley were joined by self-made millionaire Zak Blackman in January – as he opened up on how he pulls in £30,000 a WEEK. 

Instead of throwing his worn socks in the laundry, Zak, 23, who appeared on the new series of Olivia Attwood‘s ITV documentary Getting Filthy Rich, flogs them online for up to £1,500 a pair to his band of devoted followers online. 

Despite being the first person to be fired from the Royal Navy for making adult content on subscriber site OnlyFans, Zak, who has also worked alongside Britain’s Got Talent judge KSI and posed with him on Instagram, now owns a penthouse apartment and a sports car. 

Zak said: ‘I joined the Navy when I was 18 – and I was in for three years… I expected to be there potentially for a career, a lifetime. 

‘Life just switched… by the end of it, I’d had enough. I started OnlyFans in the Navy in my last three months and I just thought: “This is where [the money] is”.’

After it was discovered he had an OnlyFans account that he was posting content from filmed on the ship Zak was stationed on, the youngster was asked to leave. 

‘It was the money and the freedom, and me being my own boss, that I loved, I’d had enough of the Navy by the end, and when I left, things kicked off,’ he continued. 

‘It showed me a completely different lifestyle, I was going up to Manchester on the weekends, I had group of friends there that had all done the same thing, and I saw the lifestyle, the cars, the money, and I wanted to be like that.

‘At the start my content [involved] everything and I slowly moved onto feet, and I was so shocked it was such a big market. There was a massive market for it. 

‘I realised I could sell socks for around a grand each, and I was making so much money just from selling feet pictures.

‘It was a shock, but I thought, “Okay, this is my new life, this is my new career and let’s see where it takes me’, but I did not think I’d be here two years ago, it’s mad how life can switch, you can do anything if you put your mind to it.’ 

Discussing the strange requests he gets from customers, Zak continued: ‘I’d make custom videos of me just taking off my socks, a 30-second video, and I’d get a few hundred pounds from it.’

To keep his followers entertained, Zak often does ‘sock drops’, where he leaves his worn socks out in public for his fans to find, with video hints to lead them to it.

‘I started off leaving socks around places,’ he explained. ‘Fans would swarm there – someone told me they left their wife at home to go and collect my sock. It was crazy.’

Despite selling X-rated content, Zak insists his family are behind him, explaining: ‘A few months went by and I was helping my dad with rent, and I’d like to think that they’re proud of me now.

‘Compared to the Navy, my life is just so different – before I was working eight hours on, eight hours off, it was really strict, and now I’m working for myself. 

‘I went from being in a room living with eight different lads in an enclosed space, and now I live in a beautiful apartment in Manchester, I have my dream car, life has absolutely switched.

‘But I would never be here without the Navy because it’s taught me discipline, it’s taught me so many things that I’ve taken into civilian life – it changed me so much and I recommend it to anyone.’

Zak appeared on the show without his shoes, prompting Cat to ask: ‘Now you haven’t got any shoes on, can I just peep a look or are you going to charge me per peep?’

‘Help yourself!’ Zak joked, showing off his socks, to which Cat hit back: ‘They look like perfectly normal feet and socks to me so what’s so special about them?’   

The comments left the presenting pair laughing, but those watching the show at home did not share the same enthusiasm, taking to X, formerly Twitter, to hit out at ITV for ‘scraping the barrel’. 

‘Once again scraping the barrel with content,’ one furious viewer hit out, as another wrote: ‘What a world we live in?! Airtime for a bloke selling his socks to creeps to make money? Astonishing.’

‘Who is buying dirty socks for 30k?’ a third penned, as a fourth wrote: ‘What the F is going on here…’

Someone else chimed in: ‘Remember when This Morning used to be good?’

‘Now some of these young people and celebrities are so hungry for money that they would turn to a site like only fans to become richer. It’s sad honestly,’ another viewer added. 

Someone else wrote: ‘Perversions on #ThisMorning now. Great telly…’ as another said: ‘He’s deffo doing more on OF than changing his socks to make 30k think they missed that part out.’

This Morning airs weekdays from 10am on ITV1 and ITVX.